Matt and Carol's Travels

THIS IS A LONG ONE...

We decided to visit fire and ice. To get there one had to move to Grants, NM, so we popped into a KOA there.

OUR FIRST STOP AT THE KOA

We settled in and I roamed the park because my interest was peaked quickly... lava.

A COLLASPED LAVA BUBLE

This collapsed bubble was near the entrance to the park, but this was not the only lava, the park actually sat in part of the Malpais (pronounced MAHL-pye-EES) flow.

This flow was all around us, and along the highway into town.

With all this nature, there was a price to pay. The site you see our trailer in didn't last long. When we backed in I failed to notice a rather large ant hill with large black ants. After a while they got to be too much so I called the office and asked if there was another site available, and there was, so we moved. The site was a little smaller but had some shade. Here was the trade off... ants for flies.

Our new site was closer to the horses on the other side of the fence. I had no complaints because I knew we could deal with the flies, that what they made traps for. To give you an idea of the flies, look about half way down the container. See that faint black line about where the green line of the label is, those are flies. A couple of days later I dumped about two inches of dead flies in a field a short walk from the trailer. I filled the container with more solution and went back to catching more flies. Should you be wondering what attracts the flies, the smell of rotting flesh. The packets that go in the water are formulated to smell rotten, and I highly recommend that when using these traps, keep them down wind and away from where you are entertaining, more because of the flies than the smell.

Let me show you show of the benefits of the new site:

Well worth the move.

So, what did we do while we were in Grants... what else, Walmart the first day.

The first adventure after Walmart was to the fire and ice I started this post with.

We drove to Bandera Volcano and the Ice Cave, which were located on private property of the family that has owned it since the mid 1800s. Visit: https://www.icecaves.com.

The basics are simple, the volcano erupted somewhere around 10,000 years ago, and the cave doesn't get above 31℉. Do visit the website. I will show you lots of photos of the lava flow which visitors can walk through, and a walk to the ice cave.

The starting point was the Trading Post.

It started as just a trading post, then a saloon and dance hall were added. Because the day was going to be a hot one, we took the advice of the storekeeper and headed to the volcano first.

Be warned, Carol and I take pictures of whatever catches our eyes.

First steps: the restroom.

Second steps:

ROAD TO THE TOP OF THE CRATER

This was not a straight hike with periodic escalators, but there were benches. Here is an overview of what we traversed:

Courtesy of Google Earth

We went up the yellow path and came back the orange path. The next photo shows the enormity of the flow from that ancient eruption (the dark area).

Courtesy of Google Earth

It is said that one of the lava tubes flowed 17 miles to where Grants is now located, parts of the tube did collapse, which was evident around the campground.

FORMED WHEN MINOR VENTS

FORMED IN MOLTEN LAVA

The trail was nicely maintained, they used cinder and gravel. What you are seeing in these photos was the level portion of the trail, around that bend is where the climb began.

I have a fascination for how trees present themselves to us. What caught my eye in the last photo was the knot hole and spiraling grain.

LOOKING DOWN ON PART OF THE FLOW

I warned ya.

THIS ONE CREATED A PRE-FAB NESTING SPOT

This was a spot where lava leached out. There are a lot of elements within lava, and at this spot visitors can see where calcium (white), sodium and sulfur (yellow), and iron (red) leached out.

NATURE'S LADDER

DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND

This area is called "Devil's Playground". This was the beginning of the lava flow tube.

As we rounded the bend we saw victory was at hand... the observation platform.

The cone of the crater measures roughly 1400 feet across, and 800 feet deep. From the observation deck the cone raises nearly 500 feet. The cone is slowly filling in due to erosion.

I THINK IT WAS A RUN-OFF SPOT

Now that we made it to the crater it was time to take a small break before heading back via the "scenic" trail.

The storekeeper said this was about as long as the other from the junction of the two trails... boy was he wrong... it was longer.

This trail took us more through the lava flow itself.

COLLASPED SECTION OF LAVA TUBE

PATTERN IN THE LAVA

I climbed the lava flow below to get the above photo.

PATTERN LIKE THE FIREWORK SNAKES

We made it out of the lava desert, and arrived at the ice cave.

I mentioned earlier that the cave doesn't get above 31℉. By the way, you're looking the wrong way to see the cave.

It was 60+ steps to get to the cave, and that was hard on my sore knee. Anyway, down I went, Carol stayed at the top.

Back in the the 1940s this ice was much taller. When the saloon opened they would come down and harvest ice, along with others, selling it to customers. It is is believed that the depth of the ice is currently 22 feet.

It was refreshing when the coolness of the cave hit me. Some of you may be asking yourself where the water came from, ground water and rain.

What went down must now go up:

When they said uneven steps, they were correct, they were not uniform going down, and seemed even more uneven going up. lol

Last leg of the hike was back to the museum/gift shop/trading post/cafe.

The museum contained a lot of artifacts that were discovered on the property and in the area.

They also had a short video about the volcano and ice cave, and the current owners. The day trip was worth the effort. Time to head home for dinner.

The next day involved less driving, we drove all of four miles into Grants for a couple of museums.

When we got in town, the first items that impressed me were the satellite dish baskets on the street:

This town also wants visitors to know that they visited Grants.

They also show off some of their buildings too.

So, back to the museums. The first one was Cibola County Museum, and right next door was the Uranium Miners Museum.

The Cibola County Museum was a small eclectic museum as so often is a little town museum.

Before Grants was of importance, a family moved from Santa Rosa to Los Alamitos "little cottonwoods" spring in the malpais. This would have been 1880.

At the same time the Atlantic and Pacific railroad was under construction and passed to the west of Los Alamitos. The construction team consisted of 4,000 men, and 2,000 mules, and they were led by three brothers, Angus, John, and Lewis Grant.

This crude log structure was the work cabin built on the west end of the railroad, and was known as "Grants Camp". This section of construction was completed in 1882. After completion of this section the building was later named "Grants Station".

Here was where the first 1880 residents comes into play. With the advent of the railroad, the little town of Los Alamitos grew around the railroad. The final name change came in 1935, when it would finally be known as "Grants". Grants had become a major shipping point for cattle and sheep, as well as logging from the nearby Zuni Mountains.

It wasn't always a bed of roses. Apparently there was a financial panic in 1890 that saw the Atlantic and Pacific taken over by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

The ranchers let their livestock range free because of the lush grass, but that all changed in 1918. In 1918 a drought began and the grasses dried up, and the ranchers were forced to fence off land for there livestock to survive on. The sheep industry lasted for about 40 years.

By 1930 there was a decline in the lumbering business. This did not stop the community, they changed to agriculture.

The Grants-Milan area became known as the "Carrot Capitol" of the United States. What made farming possible... the volcanic soil and the dam built in 1929. Through much effort, the farmers grew some of the finest carrots. These farmers grew a carrot with a tang, and sweetness that could only come from the high altitudes of the continental divide. Because of the quality of the product, farmers were able to ask premium prices, and the New York buyers were willing to pay. Unfortunately California took that away from these folks when they began growing large quantities, and charging a lower price.

Did California detour Grants... nope. Fortunately for a Navajo herder who found uranium in the area. The uranium mining industry lasted until the 1980s, and after the boom, the town saw a depression.

The town went under right... not. The town was located on Route 66, and had, an airway beacon. Tourism came to the rescue, and tourism is still important to the town.

We were finding that smaller museums contain many donated items from its residents because the residents are proud of their community and service.

Another section of this museum represented the valiant servicemen and servicewomen. Here were two examples:

ELIAS SAAEDRA

Elisa was born and died at 96 in San Rafael. He worked in the sheep industry before he was drafted into WWII. He fought in the Philippines, became a POW there. Some of you out there may have heard of a horrific march the Japanese made POWs do... it was the Bataan Death March; Elias was a survivor of that march.

HISTORY LESSON: The Japanese forcibly marched 72,000 to 78,000 American and Filipino prisoners 65 miles. The Japanese did not have enough trucks to transport all the prisoners, that is why they were marched. It was an inhumane march, the POWs were not given food or water during the march, averaging about 8.5 miles a day.

SAN JUAN "SAM" ANTONIO

This young man was stationed in the Philippines at the time the Japanese attacked Bataan Peninsula. As part of the coast artillery they fought alongside others on the peninsula. They were forced to surrender to the Japanese by order of their general, partially because food and other supplies had run low. Food was so low that the soldiers were eating their horses and mules; the general thought he was protecting his men by surrendering.

This story ends a tad different from the first. Sam and another soldier escaped the "death march" by outrigger canoe to the island of Corregidor. Both soldiers ended up as POWs on Corregidor. He was able to meet up with other Acoma Pueblo soldiers.

I don't know if you caught it, both of these soldiers were not white, one was Mexican-American, the other was Native American. It shows that all Americans were willing to fight for our countries interests. There were many other stories too.

For the sport enthusiast they have an event called the "Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon". The athletes begin in Grants (elev. 6,400 feet). They cycle up Lobo Canyon for 15 1/2 miles, switch to running shoes for the next 5 1/2 miles. At this point the athletes become cross-country skiers for 3 1/2 miles, before switching to snow shoes for the last 1 1/2 grueling miles, reaching an elevation of 11,301 feet. That's not the finish line... they have to turn around and head back to Grants... snow shoes, cross-country skies, running shoes, and finally cycle. Keep in mind that some of the more athletic competitors might complete the 50 mile course in four hours after starting, some will return around sundown.

Our next adventure required us to walk almost 50 yards to the Uranium Miners Museum.

This museum was a bit of a pleasant surprise. In the lobby were displays of some of the minerals and gems found in the area, there was a room exhibiting Native American artifacts, a section explaining the development of the area, and an exhibit about uranium and how it affected the community.

FISH FOSSILS

Stepping to the other wing we learned the history/beginning of the area.

It is necessary to understand that volcanoes were active in this area as far back as 4,500,000 years ago.

MT. TAYLOR

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

It is believed that Mt. Taylor was active between 4.5 million and 1.5 million years ago, and possibly surrounded by a sea. The northeast side of Mt. Taylor's eruption is dated back to approximately 2.5 million years ago.

What these volcanoes did was created underground pockets of hot water, allowing minerals such as gold, silver, copper, and molybdenum to be deposited at the surface.

We started back 300,000,000 years ago when New Mexico was covered by a shallow sea.

During this time frame the continents were still shifting, causing the seas to raise and lower as the plates moved. The changes saw marine life and other items of the sea get buried, and eventually fossilized.

About a 1,000,000 later dinosaurs apparently roamed this area, this can be verified by the fossils found.

The terrain is known as malpais (MAHL-pye-EES), meaning badlands or bad country. This term was used by the Spaniards.

As early as 12,000 years ago the basins and valleys looked more like the plains of Africa. Large mammals roamed the area around the lakes and streams. Where there is food, there were humans. Man came to the area in search of the mammals. The humans were classified as the "Folsom Man" group, one of the earliest known species of mankind in the area.

By about 6,000 B.C., the land became more arid, and the large mammals either died off, or moved on. Some of the population stayed and adapted to a plant way of life, others roamed in search of the herds.

Around 1,800 B.C. saw a change in the population with the introduction of corn. Corn required a more sedentary lifestyle, resulting in the growth of encampments.

1 A.D. saw the acceleration of permanent homes during the Basketmaker II times (1-500 A.D.). The population was still considered hunter gatherers.

500-800 A.D. (Basketmaker III) saw the establishment of permanent villages, with the building of pit houses.

PIT HOUSE

Bow and arrow, and gray-ware were also hallmarks of this time period.

I know I was suppose to be talking about uranium, but to get a feel for the discovery of uranium, we need to see that people had to be here.

So lets talk uranium.

The carrot industry took a dive thanks to California and plastic bags. About the time that happened there was a big call for uranium. Many geologists and prospectors looking for other minerals knew where to look. In 1950 the area saw geologists roaming around the area scouting uranium. One day the geologists were in a bar/grill discussing their prospecting efforts, another customer overheard their conversation, and asked to see the sample rock they had. This "other " customer was a Native American named Paddy Martinez, a herder and local resident. Paddy had been all over the areas west of Mt. Taylor, and saw rocks similar to the one the geologists had. Paddy took off to Haystack Mountain, west of Mt. Taylor, to explore. His efforts were successful in finding some very good uranium beds. Paddy's discoveries were on the Santa Fe Railroad Company property.

Once the productive beds were located, the race was on to mine this new mineral. In the 1950s there as many as 45 shippers of uranium.

SIGNS POINTING TO EVERY MINE

OPERATING IN THE AREA

ONE OPERATING MINE

So how did they locate the uranium in the early day... the Geiger-Muller counter, a.k.a. Geiger counter, developed in 1928.

GEIGER-MULLER COUNTER

More sophisticated devices, more sensitive, were later developed for uranium detection.

SCINTILLATOR

One of the riches beds of uranium was found using the Scintillator. A pilot was flying over the Laguna Indian Reservation, which produced two mines, "Jackpile" and "Woodrow". To give you an idea how sensitive this device was, this is the depth that uranium was found near Mt. Taylor:

Keep in mind that Mt. Taylor is over 11,000 feet, and a pilot was flying over the mountain; then refer back to the strip mining picture.

Strip mining was not the only way uranium was mined, there were men that worked underground in mines. So how did they get the ore out...

One of the mine workers made a model of a uranium mine in honor of the all the mine workers who worked and died mining uranium.

In the early days of uranium mining, little was know about the affects on a human body. It was learned that energy released from uranium could change DNA in natural organisms and living things that came in contact with uranium. It was learned that more exposure to uranium, the more damaged to tissue and organs.

Some of the workers who spent decades mining uranium suffered, and suffer now from a variety of health issues such as: autoimmune diseases, kidney disease, cancer, and blood pressure issues.

For this area the uranium mining industry slowed down and disappeared by the early 1980s. There is rumor that mining may begin in the area again, however, the Navajo Nation has a concern about mining Mt. Taylor, which they consider a sacred mountain in their culture. We will have to wait and see what happens.

The cool part of the museum was yet to come... going into the mine... not. We did go into a replica of a once operational mine. To get to the mine we needed to climb into an elevator... no, not like they may had rode into the mine, this was a normal building elevator.

STEPPING OUT OF THE ELEVATOR

There was a lot of time, thought, and effort put into building this mine exhibit; many actual mine workers collaborated with the construction crew.

Each station had a explanation of what was happening in that area.

Once the miners got out of the cage, they started in either the privy (bottom photo), or stepped into the lunchroom/office.

MINER'S MICROWAVE

Once the meeting, or break was over, they headed further into the mine, and so did we.

Here was something I had to grasp about how ore got out of the mine. There was a level that received the ore, taking it to the ore station. That ore came from different levels in the mine; lets see how.

As we could see working in a mine that is underground, water seepage would be a concern, this was addressed with the drain that runs adjacent to the track (top photo).

Ore passes connected the levels that were being mined to the track level that delivered the ore to the station. The ore cars would travel the track until they were under an ore chute. The chute doors were air compressor operated, loading each car.

The mine had chutes throughout. To lay more drift track the face of the track level needed to be blasted, the removal was done by the "mucker".

The rock face would be blasted, and the mucker would remove the rubble, scooping it up and feeding it backwards into the ore car behind it. As you might be able to see. it was also compressed-air driven.

They had "raises" throughout the mine for men and ventilation.

MANWAY RAISE

FLASH NO FLASH

These many raises allowed the workers to transit level to level.

Ventilation raises were only one means for getting air in and out of the mine. The other sources included the mine shafts themselves, and electric blowers and tubing.

Right this way:

The next station was called the "Stope".

OPEN STOPE

A stope is where ore is mined, an open stope is where the ore has been mined out. Workers were not allowed in the open stopes, the ore was removed by "dragging scrapers" (slusher buckets and electric slusher winches).

As you may have seen before in movies and mining documentaries, you can't move forward without blasting a few times. This was done by drilling holes.

These drills were not light, and used air. Because they were heavy, an air-operated jack lifted them up, pushed them forward, and withdrew them. Look at the back of the drill and you will notice a support going to the roof, this was to prevent what they called "backfall", basically, caving in. The drills vibrated a lot.

The purpose of using these drills was to provide direction of the drift, and separate ore from waste.

How did they do that?

There you go, drill the hole, fill with explosive. No, they did not just go and load them up and blow them out, each hole was set off about a millisecond apart. The purpose of the individual delays allowed for creating the desired rock size they wanted, and the direction they wanted the broken rock to go. This was a precision evolution. Definition: a round was several loaded holes grouped together in a specific pattern (see top photo). The explosive was generally placed six feet into the holes, the center round was set off first to make room for the other rounds to move into, in other words, the top rounds could drop down into the vacated center area. The bottom rounds were blasted last to provide movement of the material away from the drift face. All this was done electrically and controlled from the central blasting area.

It is hard to see in the top photo, but there are no wires in the top center hole, and there was a reason for that, which will be seen later.

I mentioned earlier about different forms for ventilation, the next station was the Ventilation Drift:

This ventilation was controlled throughout the mine using ventilation doors and bulkheads (walls). If there was insufficient ventilation to a portion of the mine it might be closed off, and a sign read "closed or keep out, do not enter without a respirator". Some areas were permanently sealed off to prevent ventilation loss.

Another drill... goody:

LONG HOLE DRILL

Again, an air-operated machine. Its function was to locate the ore. It had the capability to drill several hundred feet deep, could drill in any direction, and create a hole approximately two inches in diameter. To make the hole deeper, the use of "threaded long hole steel" is inserted between the drill bit and the drill itself.

Once the holes were drilled, radiation sensors were inserted to check for ore and its grade.

Earlier I mentioned the stope was where the ore was removed via a "slusher". The next exhibit was that equipment in a stope drift.

The way this equipment worked was through the electric motor, slush bucket, and pullies. The motor winch was controlled by an operator, allowing for the slush bucket to move forward, and pull ore out during a backward motion.

During the blasting portion I mentioned that upper center hole, this was where it had its place... a pully was bolted into that hole so the slush bucket could function.

Obviously they could not show this next section for safety reasons. What happened was the slush bucket would have been pulled toward the slusher winch moving ore. In front of the winch was an ore pass that led to awaiting ore cars, then taken out of the mine.

The last station was the repair shop. Each level of the mine had a repair shop for convenience and efficiency.