First. Are you kidding me it is June 10th and we ran into snow. Sandy and I took what we thought was going to be a circle tour on Rt 73 out of Baker City Oregon. It turns out Rt73 is a National Forest Service Road and as the sign says below (see Picture) they do not maintain this road for Winter Travel. Come on, it is June 10th. Needless to see we drove to 7600’ and there was to much snow on the road for our Equinox to travel. We had to turn around. Honestly even if I had a 4WD truck I wouldn’t have attempted pushing through. Absolutely “0” cell service almost the entire 2 hour drive.
We did come across an old gold mining ghost town called Granite and a gold digging dredge that operated until the 1950’s. It is said that the dredge produced $450M in gold. Interesting thing is that it floated in 12’ of water and can dredge up to 15’ deep. The water that surrounded it was actually a small pond that moved along with the dredge as it moved along the countryside. The front of the dredge contains the boom with the dredge buckets. The buckets would pick up the dirt and rock. Pull it inside where it was processed with water, spinning drums with small holes, and sleuths containing paddles of mercury. The gold would stick to the mercury. The discard was then dumped onto a conveyor belt which extended out the back and would dump it behind the dredge. This was a pretty impressive machine with electric motors, steam engine to generate heat in the winter to keep the water from freezing, pulleys, cables, etc.... To me it looked like a floating OSHA nightmare. I did ask how many men died on it. Supposed only one at age 37 from a Heart Attack.
ReplyDeletewhat a great place to stop and visit!