Day 3: Bumming Around Butte

A Copper Mine, an Abandoned Copper Pit, and a Mineral Museum

Entering the Orphan Girl Copper Mine in Butte, MT
We began our day with a tour of the Orphan Girl copper mine at the World Museum of Mining. The picture above is us standing at the entrance of the mine, with LED-lighted hard hats waiting to descend.

 Back to that later.

 This was a diverse museum indeed.  Not only were there mine and mining related exhibits, like the one below featuring fluorescent minerals...
Fluorescent Minerals at the World Museum of Mining
(Note that Lisa and her Tumi backpack also fluoresced under black light)
Lisa with her Tumi under black-light

 But for some strange reason there was also a large exhibit of sci-fi related action figures, like this set of Star Trek figures shown below.  Perhaps someone thought the copper mine was a place where no man had gone before.
World Museum of Mining Star Trek Exhibit (Go Figure!)

 The World Museum of Mining also included a bunch of relocated frontier town buildings (For you Colorado people, think South Park in Fairplay.)  Some highlights:

 Just to prove that even retired, Bob is still sucked into the local Union Hall:
Bob Can't Escape the Union Hall

This is an early snow machine-- which made us glad we were visiting in the height of summer:
1929 Snow Machine

And for everyone in my family, just three days in and I already have an interloper that needed to be cropped out of a  picture-- you guessed it, a guy picking his nose.  Here he is, straight from the cutting room floor.
Some Guy Picking His Nose

 After perusing the exhibits, we were ready to start the Orphan Girl mine tour. This is actually still a working mine (at least for the engineering students at Montana Tech), but it is mostly flooded now.  It is open to tourists down 100 feet-- which is where we went.

 We were warned that it would be muddy and cold, so we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to break in our new hiking boots. (Lisa is the one with the cute pink ones.)
Bob & Lisa Break In the Hiking Boots

 This excursion also proved that even though he is retired Bob also still can't stay out of a hard hat.
The Construction Manager Can Retire But His Hard Hat Never Dies

 This is the Orphan Girl mine gallows-frame.  (We didn't have to take the man-hoist down, they have a nice walk-in tunnel now.)
Orphan Girl Copper Mine Gallows-Frame

 The GoPro malfunctioned halfway through the tour (don't worry it is all better now), so this video is all you get of it:

After the Orphan Girl, we headed over to the other (main) copper mine in town, which is now largely no longer operational, but the very acidic water in the Berkeley Pit remains an environmental concern. This picture not only gives you a great view of the Pit, but also the water treatment plant.  
That water is 1800 feet deep with a PH of about 2.5-- so they don't want it getting out.
Berkeley Pit--(Photo by Bob)
Berkeley Pit--(Photo by Lisa)

 This great picture (thank you Bob) is of the small operation that is still working at the pit.
Berkeley Pit, Current Operations

 I wasn't really interested in the buildings or the water or the pit-- but I did pick up my second native pair of earrings-- a set of copper dangles.  So, we both enjoyed the stop at Berkeley Pit.

 Our final stop of the day was at the Montana Tech sponsored Mineral Museum & Geology Earthquake Studies Office.  There was a great interactive exhibit that let you look at all the recent earthquakes all over the world and their magnitude.  We were surprised to find that the areas of Alaska we will be visiting had small quakes (about 2.5-3 on the Richter Scale) quite often, including several today.  Hopefully our visit will not include anything worse-- though it would be fun for these East Coast natives to experience an earthquake and not be worried about our art glass collection crashing to the floor.

 There was also a large collection of minerals in the museum.  My favorite was rhodochrosite, which just may end up as my next necklace-- if we can find it cut and faceted. 
Lisa's Next Necklace?

We ended the day with a trip to Walmart to pick up a swivel attachment for our GoPro.  So look for that to be in use in the days ahead.

 Tomorrow we head to Coram, MT near Glacier National Park by way of Missoula.

 --Lisa

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