Mountain Men Embrace

As Mic gives a heartfelt hug to Clay, Clay comments, “This is one of the best days I have had in a long time! Talk about a first class operation!”

“You mean a first class monkey works!” Mic chides back.

Dutchman Hunter Jim Hatt in the background.

Ankle-deep in cold spring water, Mic wrestles with a shoring timber while Josh gives an update for the video. Storm clouds are gathering, the temperature is dropping rapidly in the mountains, and the sun is going down. Still the work continues.

A thrilling time for any documentary filmmaker! “This is the third time I have been on projects where I have gone down mine shafts,” comments Chewie. “The first time was over the side of a 300 foot cliff, deep in Vera Cruz, Mexico, swinging on a tiny rope ladder, then into a drift full of silver ore. The second was 120 feet into a blue moonstone mine in Sri Lanka. I rode a bucket down, but they couldn’t lift me back out, so I had to climb out, up the shoring made of palm trees sliced in half!”

On the surface, around a mine excavation, one must take special care to keep camera and equipment clean. The cost of repairing a professional camera is a bit more than a consumer camera. Climbing down requires both hands and paying attention. Here, Chewie waits for the camera to be lowered down on a rope. Then the rest of the time down in the shaft is spent between interviewing the person digging, filming them dig, and trying to stay out of their way, and out of the way of all of the mud and water that slops back on one’s head when the bucket is raised. But it sure beats the heck out of a desk job. “These are the moments I wait for,” says Chewie, “when I am stuck in the studio, editing a long project, with an annoying client who has no idea, or appreciation, of how arduous and time consuming the process of video production is. I can escape for a few days into the mountains; fresh air, hard work, sometimes extreme weather conditions, but it is all worth it!”

New timbers and shoring on the right. In the center of the photo is an old timber left by the Cox excavation back in 1958. Note the drain pipe also in center. Imagine how hard it is to auger a hole through over 30 feet of mountain, and hit a shaft that is barely five feet wide. This drain will work for a day or so of digging, then another one will have to be augered in at a lower depth!

FIRST LOOK into the Spanish drift! With the camera right down at water level in the shaft, we get a view a foot or two back along the ceiling of the old Spanish drift! The drift seems to be caved in, but only more digging and shoring will tell. This is the first time it has seen light, or heard voices in nearly fifty years! The shoring that is visible is left from Ted Cox.

Now looking up the left side of the drift, along the ceiling, more of Cox’s timber is visible. Upon examination of this area, a Forest Service archaeologist commented recently, “Cox’s timbers are visible, and I can definitely make out older material just past them. You guys may just have yourself something very significant here!”

Now the arduous and very dangerous process continues: shoring up the sides and preparing to clear the main drift. What lies beyond? Rumor has it that human remains were found deep inside by Cox. And there is also the large, solid anomaly that GPR identified as being in the left drift (SEE Discussion Board for more info by Mic) when the site was first surveyed. Is it a pile of old mining tools left behind? Or is it . . . something else, more precious, secreted away by the Spanish miners with hopes of someday returning for it?

Looking south to Phoenix from Superstition Mountain, a storm blows in from the west. It will be below freezing and windy in the mountains tonight. At base camp there will be snow. Winter has arrived.

In the Valley, folks prepare for the holidays, light their fire places, and stay bundled in jackets. In the mountains, the wind blows so hard the crew can't even keep a fire safely burning to try to stay warm. It will be a bitter cold night.