Frisco, Co: Royal Mtn + the 10 Mile Range/The Solomon Mines

[JE]

http://cavediver.net/photopost/data/500/fall1.jpg


Kelly,

Ten Mile range & Royal Mtn. is about 7miles northeast of Copper Mountain. What you are lookin at here is Royal Mtn & the !0 Mile range. The Solomon Mines are facing north{ the dark side of what you are looking at in the above photo}, which would be to the right side of the picture. Royal Mtn is the peak in front, with the Town of Frisco at it's base.

J.

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Is this near Copper mountain? Would access by snowmobile be better closer to winter? [/quote]


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While snowmobiles could be used in the winter time, the timing is best in the early fall, as temperatures average lower to middle 70's outside, & everything is fairly stable, with little or no slides to worry about. Anytime from mid September to late October would be ideal for an trip onset. After that the weather begins to change dramitcally.

Jack

[cavdiver2]

Just a suggestion but there are a lot of hunting guides that have pack mules. You may be able to hire one to get the gear to the location and back.

Michael

[JE]

"but, I'd be game to give it a try if it could be worked out logistically. I spend a fair amount of time in Colorado while at work.....mostly in the Denver, Aspen, and Telluride areas... " {MikeH}

'Looks like we may have a convoy here'-! {Kelly Jessop/MikeH/Normblitch/JE}

Well, it takes a good 3 days to comfortably drive out to Denver from Orlando & a good 3 days to drive back. Then you have to allow for supplys & tank fills in Denver prior to going up the hill. So add one additonal day here. The drive to Summit County takes about 80 minutes or less without gear, so figure 1+1\3 hours with gear. We would need to establish a base of operations, either in a local hotel, or in tents along the river. {Ten Mile Creek} I would suggest a couple of hotel rooms for two maybe three nites. It's always more comfotable to be able to take a good hot shower & eat well when not working. A staging base camp could feasably be made alongside the creek at the base of the main mine entrance. Gear could be staged in advance of the intended explorations. You do not want to haul heavy cave diving equipment up the sides of an enormous mountain range & then go diving right afterwards. That is too much & asking for problems with DCS. I think two full days of diving could be made comfortably, & then 1 day allowed for take down & de-briefing. There are high altitude tables available thru NOAA's Mil. divers manuel, which also give mixed gas & O2 tables. I would suggest having our own tables engineered for any of the dives that would be considered. There is one major issue here to discuss: That is about aclimitization or bringing our lower elevation acusstomed selves to living in high altitude. Without acclimating ourselves we would be subject to what is referred to as altitude sickness or oxygen starvation. We are looking at an additonal three to fourteeen days to acclimate ourselves-! With this in mind, it now becomes a major issue, as most of us cannot afford to spend up to 3 weeks or more to bring this sojourn off. Unless, someone can come up with answers to this major issue, it will probably be best to put this journey on hold.

Jack 8)

[charlieo]

Do you think I may be of some help?

[Joaquin]

Be extremely careful when diving in flooded mines, they are potentially very unstable. We have had some incidents here in Spain.

Besides the potentially unstable roof, the largest risk I see is contamination. Do you know what heavy chemicals have been used down there? If not dont dive it without checking it out first with complete contamination proof suit and helmet.

Any good luck, sounds like a great project.

Regards,

JJK

[D1V3R]

yeah, i would be reeeeeally worried about contamination. you hear about wreck divers getting terrible lead poisoning from lead-based paints inside the ship when they are digging through the silt, imagine the crap that's down in a mine shaft.

[JE]

Do you think I may be of some help?

Hi Charlieo,

Of course, you could be instrumental to checking this place out for us. It will take a day of your time to drive up to Frisco & then hike up alongside of 10 Mile creek there. You'll spot the talings some distance down {west} of Royal Mtn, & then it is only a matter of scrambling up to the top of the talings to the mine entrance. There are two entrances that I can remember, so it should be fairly easy to find. Do not, go into the first mine shaft you come too along that creek, {maybe 100 yards upstream} as the timbers in that are rotten & dangerous to access. The Solomon shafts are a ways down from there, & a good hike up to almost tree-line. You'll see them. Let us know if you go there, & take some fotos too, so you can post them here & let everybody see what it looks like.
I want to say thank you for offfering to help.
Be Safe,

Jack

[Webmaster]

Most of the really nasty compounds associated with mining are related to the processes used to extract and concentrate the taget mineral from the ore. These operations were not typically performed in situ in underground mines. I would expect the most you might have to deal with chemically would be natural leachates which should not pose to great threat with limited exposure.

Mines are more unstable than caves because they are excavated so quickly (in geologic time). A cave is formed slowly and the stresses from the overburden have a long time to be released. It might actually be safer to dive it since you would tend to avoid physical contact with the surrounding rock anyway, or it might have accelerated weathering being submerged.

Last time I was out there mtn. biking I was hitting trails that got up around 11000'. It was rough, going from 600' here to 8000-9000'+ there and trying to crank up those hills. The air is pretty dang thin up there. If you wanted to spend time to acclimatize, you could use it to pack the gear up to the mine area. Supposedly it takes about 3 months to fully acclimatize to the altitude.

[charlieo]

Jack,
We need to discuss scheduling. The season here will end PDQ. Although we have some very nice days in October in the mountains, we may also have snow measured in feet. August would be an ideal month, but August 2005 is gone. August 2006? The minor problems like lodging, camping and gas fills will be easy to work out.
I'm schedule for the next three weekends. Early October will be as soon as I could look for the mine.
Charlieo

[JE]

Jack,
We need to discuss scheduling. The season here will end PDQ. Although we have some very nice days in October in the mountains, we may also have snow measured in feet. August would be an ideal month, but August 2005 is gone. August 2006? The minor problems like lodging, camping and gas fills will be easy to work out.
I'm schedule for the next three weekends. Early October will be as soon as I could look for the mine.
Charlieo

Good morning Charlieo,

There is no rush here to run up to Frisco just to ck it out. Its been there for years, & isn't going anywhere. Do it according to your schedules. I agree that it's probably too late this year to make the assult. If you have an interest out there with other cave divers, by all means go for it. Our guys down here would love to get at it, but it is a long trip out there & back for us. It would be awesome to see some good photographs of the mines. Like maybe drop a q-lite on a line down one of them for several feet, & then snap some photos of it underwater, to give us an idea what it looks like. The last time I was up there it was pretty impressive. Anyhow, stay in touch with us, & let us know what you are doing. Maybe post a foto or two of yourself so we can recognize you, would be helpfull too.
Thanks Charlieo,

Jack E.