Ghost Town Bonanza

looks like a great trip.

i work for a gps company and our automotive products have the ability to show you where you have been driving. So you can have it on while driving to keep the record. then when you get home you can connect to a computer and pull the log back off of the device. from there you should be able to share it.

I'm old school, I prefer an the tried and true topographical map, compass and and good instincts. A few years ago I bought a Garmin Oregon 450 with maps and gave it a try to use while out hiking the back country. The problem I had with it was my hikes lasted longer than the batteries. When I got back I tried to overlay the route on Google Earth but I couldn't seem to make it work. I'm sure that was due to my lack of knowledge of computers.

I know there are some great devices on the market but until I can get someone to hold my hand and teach me how to use one I will stick with paper maps. With paper I can always use it as a fire starter when in need. Been there done that.

Now I'm going to go look at Garmins website. lol
 
Good times, thanks for sharing the pics! Btw Where is the pic with the stamp mill site with the brick smoke stack and dry-stacked retaining walls in the foreground?


Auggie- I have to say that Garmin GPS's are the shizzle! Recently our work GPS's (Garmins) were "upgraded" to Trimble JUNOS as they are GIS compatable. My $800 Trimble lasted about a month before I trashed it and went back to a less expensive Garmin. The Garmins are much more reliable and user friendly...
 
Good times, thanks for sharing the pics! Btw Where is the pic with the stamp mill site with the brick smoke stack and dry-stacked retaining walls in the foreground?


Auggie- I have to say that Garmin GPS's are the shizzle! Recently our work GPS's (Garmins) were "upgraded" to Trimble JUNOS as they are GIS compatable. My $800 Trimble lasted about a month before I trashed it and went back to a less expensive Garmin. The Garmins are much more reliable and user friendly...

elminero67, the pic was taking in the town of Troy, or what is left of it. That is some rough country there and I sure feel for the men that had to work that mine. The mine openings are straight up the incredibly steep hill way above the stamp mill. Not to mention the mine is way off the beaten path and the road up there is very rough even for modern day vehicles. I believe the mine was only in operation for just over a year. Not sure why it was shut down so quickly especially after spending so much money on building a stamp mill. I have to say the miners in this part of the country had to be some tough sons of guns. Everything is out to get them.
 
One of the reasons I enjoy visiting those old ghost town is to see the amazing things they did in an era of mules and wagons -- or maybe Model Ts and donkey engines. Tram wheels and stamp mills that weigh many tons were hauled up into the most improbable places. To see them out there now makes you shake your head in disbelief.

It's no wonder the little cemeteries in those old ghost towns -- when there are legible headstones -- are often filled with men in their 40s and 50s. It was very tough out there. (For the few women, it often appears to have been childbirth that did them in.)

These little mining towns were usually wretched places, windswept, exposed, freezing cold in winter and hot in the summer. Water was scarce. Food had to be hauled in for miles, usually in cans, many of which had lead seams. Every stick of wood would be cut from the hillsides for miles around to fuel the furnaces that powered the mines -- not to mention heating shacks and dugouts.

There are many reasons why so many mines were short-lived, but a lot had to do with the combination of limited exploratory capabilities (no core samples from deep underground) and unregulated securities markets.

Mark Twain was in Nevada in the 1860s (his mother sent him west to live with his brother in Carson City to avoid being drafted into the Civil War), and he defined a mine as a hole in the ground with a liar standing in front of it. He writes about people being filthy rich with mining stock certificates one day, and using them a few days later to kindle fires in their stoves.

Today, the combination of great exploratory capabilities (and costs), highly regulated securities markets, and environmental regulations makes it almost impossible for small operators to raise the capital needed to finance a modern mine operation, so it is mostly the business of big corporations and their contractors and subcontractors. The 1980s-90s was the last mini boom that involved some smallish operators, and their abandoned pits can be seen all over Nevada.

And today, when a mine is up and running, the work is done by a handful of people in great machines who often don't even live near the mines or move their families to the area.
 
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