scafool, I have no questions for you but rather a comment.

Just reading about your mining life brought back a lot of good memories.

I went to a school with an old mining history, and one of the neat things about mining schools is that they have experimental mines...in this case, the Waldo. (Actually, the Waldo was the Waldo adit, the mine itself the Graphic...but it's always been the Waldo). The Waldo adit was punched in 1908, in production until the mid-fifties, and leased to the school after that. Officially closed about 2002.

18 levels, but flooded up to the ninth (also the adit), six miles left of accessible tunnel, and no power - so there were ladders made from timbers next to the winzes.

The mining engineering kids pretty much had the run of the place...we had the old mine maps and would spend a lot of days and nights pushing the old drifts, re-surveying, and "accurazing" the maps. We'd even have races to get the best times to and through the escapeways (beer handicap optional). I was with a local subterranean SAR group and we did a bit of training there. We would set up and run exercises for the state mine rescue teams as well.

I was never a blaster (and the mine wouldn't have handled vibration very well) but we did have those types around. I always studied the explosions, not the explosives. Fun stuff, nonetheless.

Hard rock underground, there's nothing like it. Thank you for bringing all that back.

I envy you and your experiences. Except for the jacklegging.

Oh, and we used cyalumes quite a bit for marking gear - rope bags, stokes, jackets, whatever - that would get staged or otherwise left behind.