We all slept in a bit on the morning of Saturday June 1st. We were up by around 7:30 or 8:00 and out the door and ready to start exploring by 9:00. The rental house was very comfortable and a great place to spend a weekend. Considering that the cost was being split between three of us, it was less expensive than separate hotel rooms, and provided much more space and comfort. It also gave us the option of using a fully set up kitchen, so that we didn't have to eat all of our meals in restaurants.
After a quick breakfast at the house we set out to meet the others. We got together with Arturo and Sharon and Chris and Connie and headed over to the Greenhill mine site near Blairmore. Sharon worked on some sketching and painting while the rest of us explored and made photographs. The site has not changed a lot from the last time I was there, with the exception of the lamphouse, which is now gone. Evidence suggests it burnt and whatever remained was likely demolished and hauled away. The tipple remains as does the compressor building and the wash house. The wash house was reinforced and secured a few years ago. The clay block walls are open on top and these were covered with tarps several years ago, and remain that way. The roof is long gone, so these walls are exposed and slowly deteriorating. We spent a good part of the day here photographing and exploring. The wind had switched around to the west and this was beginning to clear out the smoke. It continued to improve through the weekend and even by the end of the day Saturday was almost gone.
Later in the afternoon we drove up the road to the Greenhill winch house. This building had some large winches that were used to run a tramway up and down the mountain to bring down coal. The tram line is long gone but the winches and motors remain, in a somewhat vandalized state, in this old building.
Still later Chris took us for a drive up behind the Frank Slide area. We had to hike in to a site that Chris was aware of, but had not seen in person before. It was a fan house.... a very interesting stone building with a very large fan assembly. This was originally used to blow ventilation air down into the mine shaft. It was quite hot by this point in the afternoon and the skies had cleared. I think it got up to over 25C, and I even got a touch of sunburn on my arms. We were all getting a bit fatigued by the heat and the climb up the hill to this site with heavy camera gear.
We headed down into Blairmore after that and made a stop at the Greenhill Hotel. As a child growing up Chris had stopped here many times with his parents. He and his siblings had always waited in the car while his parents went into the tavern for a couple of beers. But Chris had never been into the tavern himself... so this would be the day. It was a very old school kind of place. You could order any kind of draft beer you wanted, as long as it was Budweiser. At $15 a jug, and on such a hot day, there were no complaints. We polished off a couple of jugs before heading on our way. A quick stop at the grocery store allowed us to pick up some supplies for a barbecue. Then we all headed up to the rental house and put together a big meal of steaks, chicken, baked potatoes, corn on the cob and salad. It was a pretty good feed and was all washed down with more beer, some wine and a little fine scotch. We stayed up and visited well into the evening before eventually retiring in preparation of the next days adventure.
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