Saturday we went rafting. That means inflatable dinghies, paddles, helmets, 7 guests in a boat, and a river so shallow our guide occasionally had to get out and push. That’s not to say that it wasn’t exciting. Although it was called the beginner cruise, there was enough whitewater that several people very nearly went swimming despite the toeholds sewn into the raft’s floor. It was good clean fun of the highest order, and also a testament to the effectiveness of Neutrogena’s SPF-45 spray-on sunblock (when applied liberally).
We showed up a bit early, and decided to make a rushed tour through the Argo Gold Mine and Mill, a long-defunct gold mine converted into a decrepit second-rate roadside attraction. As an educational experience it left something to be desired. The gold mine in question is virtually a hallway, carved into the rock with hand tools by maybe two men, and for that it’s impressive enough. It’s not the world’s most exciting hallway, though.
There’s also a 4-mile-long tunnel through the mountain to Central City, but the tunnel is long abandoned and has become a sort of heavily contaminated spring. You can’t even get a good look in, because the entrance is all flowing water. The site is strewn with rusting mining equipment of widely varying vintage, largely unlabeled, and some unrecognizable. There are mining carts still on their tracks, huge engine-driven tumblers, and even one of the enormous slow-moving pumps that pushed air through the long tunnel. (It looks like the other one was torn off its foundations for salvage.)
The centerpiece is the gold mill, a factory for separating the trace amount of gold from a huge volume of rock. The mill has an especially eerie air, a dark wooden maze, half-filled with enormous rusting (or rotting) equipment whose labels, where occasionally present, are poorly spelled and strangely worded.
I’m not sure the place is worth $13.50 (with AAA discount) for its educational value… but maybe for the ambience, of a graveyard for the machines of a long passed era.