This morning our destination was
Molly Kathleen’s gold mine. I woke with
a headache and opted not to join the group heading down into the dark
underground. One thousand feet down they
went and all the reassurances in the world did not make me feel inclined to
join them. “It’s only two minutes down,” they said. “It’s only crammed during the elevator ride!”
they said. “We only had to put our hands
in the air that one time, to get more people in,” they said. Sorry. You lost me at “two minutes down.” I
don’t like small spaces on a good day.
Today, with a head that feels thick and wooly and throbbing, I’m doing
everyone a favor by staying up top.
Paul went along and loved
it. He took a lot of pictures per my
request and told me all about it when he came back. The only thing that really sticks with me is
that they kept donkeys down there to help with the work of mining, some of them
born there and never seeing the light of day their whole lives. They had stables and all, way down there in
the dark. The government finally put a
stop to that, saying they had to bring them up at least once a day. Well, in the way that politicians have, that
turned into a disaster too. The poor
beasts did not tolerate the up and down trip well, and since they had never
seen sunshine before, their poor eyes couldn’t handle the light and they went
stone cold blind. To this day wild donkeys roam free around on top of the mine
and they are thought to be the descendants of those left behind by miners more
than a century ago.
I did find out a little bit about
Mary Catherine Gortner, for whom the mine is named. Known as Mollie, she moved her family west and
one day when she was out hunting elk she got winded and sat down for a
rest. She looked around while she was
sitting there and what should she spy but a rock run through with gold. Since the place was crawling with prospectors
she surreptitiously slipped it into a pocket and kept quiet about it until she
was able to file a claim. The
prospecting office said a woman couldn’t own a mine but wonder of wonders
Mollie Catherine’s husband just happened to be a lawyer.
Use your imagination to fill in
the blanks but, yes, this was the first gold mine owned and operated by a
woman, even though the National Geographic listed the owner as a MR. M C
Gortner. It was in operation until the
1960s, long after Mollie’s death, eventually closing as a mine but remaining
open for tours. The mining and tours had operated simultaneously for years due
to the high demand from people wanting a first-hand look at how gold was
wrested from the earth. The closing of the Carlton Mill in 1961 left all the
mines in the area with no way to process their ore leaving them little choice
but to close down.
Mining was a dangerous job but
the wages of $3.00-4.00 per day found many men willing to risk their lives and
over the course of the mine’s operations many thousands died. The deadliest year, 1907, ended the lives of
3,442 souls. Fortunately, it is safer
today. We drove past the Newmont Mine,
still taking out $1 million a day.
We left the mine at Cripple Creek
and drove through Victor, another mining town that still bore the signs of the
old west even though modernization was evident as well. It wasn’t hard to
imagine how it was a century ago; the lives lived here were hard and life was
cheap, valued only as long as you could produce more than you demanded in care
and cost. Times have changed, I think.
Our next destination, I was
looking forward to: finally seeing the Royal Gorge and crossing the
bridge. Several of us were hoping to zip-line
across. I had been struggling with a
headache all day but decided that I might never have a chance like this again
so I decided to join them.
Unfortunately, the zip-line was shut down due to high winds so that was
that.
After lunch ($3.49 for a bottle
of water!!) we decided to take the trolley across the chasm and as I crawled in
beside Paul, Dave called across the barrier separating us, asking if I was
prayed up. “Yes,” I called back, “I’m
prayed up!”
“Oh good, she’s prayed up,” said
a big, tough, macho-looking man sitting across from us in the tiny little cab
that was dangling from a cable stretched across the canyon. I told him he was responsible for his own
“praying up.” I’m not sure how the lady
beside him had convinced him to take the ride because he was obviously not too
happy about it but he laughed nervously.
They kept discussing whether it was 2400 feet down and 1000 across or
vice versa. I told him I don’t think it
will make any difference whether it’s 1000 feet deep or 2400. Either way we’re dead if it falls. Yep, I’m probably not the person you want
when you need reassurance while you’re dangling over the abyss. I’d rather do this any day than go into the
deep, dark bowels of the earth, into a cave where one little earthquake could
slowly crush the life out of you. 
We made it across just fine and
walked a spell until we reached the bridge.
The wind had definitely picked up and we stopped frequently to enjoy the
view below. A sign forbidding “fishing
from the bridge” inspired some comment.
I’m still not sure if it was a joke or not. I kept watching people swinging over the
canyon on a huge swing and I knew if I didn’t do it I’d always wish I had. But I didn’t want to go alone. It took me about ten minutes to find two
other people willing to go along.
When we were securely (we hoped)
harnessed in, Pearl informed me that she would never forgive the person
responsible for getting her into this.
Merv, on the other side of me said he hoped his heart could handle it. “Do you have heart problems??!” I asked him anxiously. They were already pulling us upward and there
was no way out now.
“No.” He laughed at my panicky
voice. “My heart’s fine.” Wow. Way to give me a heart attack before we ever set
sail. And WOW what a rush it was! The view was spectacular. And Pearl forgave me before we were even
unstrapped from our gear. We were
laughing about the whole experience all the way back to the bus. And my headache was gone. Well, pretty much.
We drove several more hours
through scenery that left us without adequate words to express our
feelings. The aspens were everything I imagined they would be. Winding our way through rock
canyons we eventually reached a one-hundred mile long valley with the “longest
straight stretch of highway in Colorado.”
The valley was fifty miles wide ringed by mountain ranges on both
sides. The only thing indicating how far
one could see were the numerous farms dotting the landscape looking about the
size of pinheads. Herds of antelope ran free, helping themselves to the sagebrush
coating mile after mile of the flat valley floor. We could see green patches where irrigation
had taken place in the middle of the wilderness. And hayfields, huge hayfields, the tractors
looking like toys as they crawled along cutting and baling.
We stopped for the night in
Alamosa. The hotel had wine, cheese, and
crackers waiting for us.
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