Time travel

I know, I know... time machine does not really exist. But, are you sure? Cuz I guess I know where to find if not a time machine but at least a time traveling trip. And it's not as far away as you might think. If you drive up on highway 70 soon you pass by two small towns close to each other - Georgetown and Silver Plum. They are both old... more than 150 years old and have a rich history. And this history is related to silver mines, many of them that can be found between these two towns. The towns are just two miles apart and this is not a problem. The problem is Silver Plum is 600 feet higher. And many miners were living there but working at the mines in between and they needed to get there and also the rocks from the mines needed to be delivered to the enrichment factories... And the only way to do it was to build a railway. A looong one. So they did it! And it is working now and even has one station...

 

But let's start from the beginning... We bought tickets and boarded the train. The real more-than-100-years-old train that moved people and cargo between mines and towns (and now moving the tourists). It has the steam engine and slowly moves between Silver Plum and Georgetown. Once you get on the train and it starts to move, you immediately stop seeing the modern faces and clothes and start to feel you jumped 100 years back and are traveling to work in mine (didn't I promise you a time traveling?).

The tracks meander between the trees and hills and sometimes you can easily touch the branches if you stretch your hand out of the open window. There are a couple of bridges over the creeks too. Interesting trip...

If you leave the train at the only stop in the middle of the trip, you can visit a real silver mine and have some understanding of how hard miners worked 150 years ago. The mine is narrow and the ceiling is low. First thing the guide tells you is "watch your head and if you cannot watch it, at least watch your mouth". Sounds funny, right? But just until you miss the rock handling from the ceiling and hit it with your head. And believe me, the hardhat is not really helping. I mean it helps to prevent the injury, but doesn't prevent to feel the hit like you have not hardhat at all. So... watch your language ;)

From the beginning the shaft has a wooden support and looks almost nice. But this is not for long. Further it mostly has no support and looks like a hole in the rock. Bare and rough. Narrow and low. The small water creek is running on the sides of the footpath (they made it on purpose so the water can be removed from the mine using natural flow).

Here and there we could see the Dragon blood - the black spills on the walls. In fact, this is what they were looking for - it is silver oxide and shows you the silver vein is somewhere close...

We walked just over half a mile and made a stop at the dining room. Not a real room, just a widen space with benches where the miners had their lunch. Now we really felt like we traveled hundreds of years back and sat with dim light after working half a day...

A few more steps and we found an elevator that was used to remove the rocks that miners dug.

The temperature inside is stable, regardless if it's toasting heat or freezing cold outside - around 43F. It is... mmm... cold! And the water is always dripping from the ceiling. And we all were really glad when we returned back to the surface and even light shower didn't upset us. What can be better than warm rain after an hour in a cold mine? I cannot imagine working 10 hours shifts in this environment...

Finally we walked around to see the mine's equipment displayed outside of the mine and boarded on the next train to Georgetown. And again, we had a feeling like we just funneled down to the past. Interesting place... You can travel through time even if you stay in the present.

To get to Georgetown, the train needs to cross the creek and narrow canyon. They build a tall iron bridge and crossing it feels like flying in the air, because you cannot see the tracks from the seats and only can see the creek far below... It's an amazing feeling I would say. We finished our short trip to the past but it still lives in our memory, believe it or not.

If you don't like the pictures from the past - click here Not time travel. The text will be the same, but the pictures are not altered and... this is not time traveling anymore (at least for me).

Pictures were taken on August 01, 2010.