Monday was my oldest daughter Hailey's 10th birthday. She was a good sport about me being away and urged me to go and take part in this project. I made sure and phoned her from the top of the mountain and wished her a happy birthday. She went out for a birthday dinner that evening with her Mom and her sisters, and I promised that we would celebrate her birthday again when I returned home. Tuesday morning saw myself and the Palcoprep guys up early and on our way back into the mine. This time is was easy to quickly check in with security and gain access to the site. We stopped at the mine office and had one of the staff members escort us up to the trackway site.
It still took us some time to get from Fernie, to the mine site, and on up to the top of the mountain. It was about 9:00AM by the time we got started. The silicone rubber had cured nicely so now all we needed to do was peel the mold away from the shale surface. This was relatively straight forward. We decided to split the mold into three pieces for ease of handling and transport. They could easily be patched back together to make a future cast of the trackway. In all likelihood any cast that is ever made would likely have to be made in sections anyway. Except for a large exhibition gallery such as in a museum, most display spaces probably will not permit the installation of a one-piece cast that will measure roughly 6 feet by 15 feet. We cleaned up and packed everything into the truck and made our way back down off the mountain. We stopped at the mine office and dropped off all the gear and radio that we had borrowed, and made our way out of the site.
At this point in time our contract was only to make a mold of a portion of the trackway. It remains to be seen what we actually do with these molds. Undoubtedly we will be producing one or more casts of this trackway for display. Perhaps in one of the Teck facilities, or the local visitor information center, or perhaps a museum. With this project sucessfully completed, this left us the afternoon to tackle our next project... the Fernie Ammonite.
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