Back to Midas

At long last, we're back on the Tuscarora Loop, with the turnoff to the small town of Midas just up ahead. On our loop trip, taken way back in early June, MOH and I passed Midas by, in favor of making it all the way to Tuscarora. At the time, I had been to neither place, but Tuscarora seemed more out-of-the-way, and therefore more exotic, so down the road we went.

We came back in mid-July, and instead of following the main road, old S.R. 18, to the right, we took the side road up the canyon to the left.

Signs at the turnoff to the Midas road.

Sign at the entrance to the town of Midas, and green trees.

Acme Beer sign, reportedly dating to about 1936.

I was on the lookout for a bar that had been open in 1979 or 1980, a bar I knew as Kirby's Midas Bar, a name given to me by a friend of mine, a young woman who was working as a geologist while staying in Midas in a company trailer. Seeing the old sign for Andy's Midas Bar made me somewhat hopeful about finding either Kirby's or Andy's bar, although Acme Beer dates back primarily to the early 1950s and before. Acme Beer did have a short revival in 1975 to 1979; could it have possibly been being sold in Midas while my friend was in town?

While in Midas, my friend could make or receive phone calls on one of the two phones in town, which had the phone numbers of Midas #1 and Midas #2. Phone numbers like these were fairly common in the 1970s and early to mid- or late 1980s in the small, outlying towns of Nevada. These numbers confused operators outside the state to no end. To place a call into Midas or Getchell, for example, you would dial 0 for an operator and then ask for Midas #1 or Getchell #2 as needed. If dialing in from out of state when trying to reach one of these types of numbers, one learned quickly to ask the out-of-state operator for a Nevada operator, because many outside operators didn't believe that phone numbers like that could even exist.

While I was looking for, and not finding, the bar I'd heard of long ago, MOH and I were hoping that the one known-to-be-operating establishment in Midas, the Midas Saloon and Dinner House, would be open, but it wasn't. This became a concern during a later, uphill, in-the-rain adventure of ours.

Mine dump, ore cart, and portal (?) a little ways up Midas Creek.

Old cabin, garage, or storage shed.

Road to somewhere.

After a quick pass through town, we headed up the hill to the west on this relatively innocent-looking side road. The partly cloudy weather became more and more threatening as storms to the south moved in, creating an unexpectedly muddy situation.

2MP HTC + Hand Lens = Macro

Okay, I'll bite on this one. I'm using a 2MP HTC 6800, not the newest or smartest of "smart" phones, two hand lenses, a penny (taking after Callan Bentley, the perpetrator of this meme) and one rock.

UPDATE 9Apr10: Actually, the "iPhone Macro Meme" started at Microecos and Myrmecos, and you will find some stunning pictures at both places. The meme has also been continued over at Highly Allochthonous. Do note that the phone used herein is not an iPhone or a Droid.

I sent these photos via email posting with my phone, primarily because I've never synched the phone to the computer; hence, no photo enlargement or enhancement has been attempted. The colors in photos from my phone always look a bit faded.


The penny, with a 10x hand lens + HTC.


The penny, using a 20x hand lens + HTC.
The penny, full screen, using my regular 12MP camera in macro mode.


A rock containing pyrite and chalcopyrite, using the 10x hand lens + HTC. Click to enlarge and you can see some crystal shapes.


The same rock through a 20x hand lens, using the HTC. This is a bit blurry, but enlarging reveals some cubic crystal shapes.
And here's the way the mineralized rock looks using the macro setting on my camera. It can be hard to get everything in focus using the macro setting, and light and shadows can be a problem.

One reason I went ahead and played around with this meme, even though my phone camera is not that great, is that I would be able to send photos to the blog from the field, presuming that I couldn't wait until evening to post. Maybe I'll test it out for real next week!

Friday - Back from the Road

Yes, we are finally back at our little house, back from being gone for a whole two weeks, traveling back and forth between Reno and the lake - back and forth, back and forth - more times than I care to mention. We stopped in Middlegate on our return; hence the photo, looking to the east through the window and screen door of Middlegate Station toward Middlegate The Place. My mind feels just about as clear as the hills and mountains look.
The night before, Middlegate The Place, with the Shoe Tree visible through the notch, looked serene in the evening light, as the sun went down and turned the Desatoya Mountains red.
Looking the other way, West Gate showed no sign of it's usual windmill, which was still lying on the ground waiting for repairs when we drove through.

Care to make a phone call?

We had great burgers, decent to good beers, and played a few uninspired games of pool. The usual Middlegate drama was taking place in the bar, though we heard only bits and pieces, off and on.

I'm in some kind of muddle-headed state and somewhat incapacitated regarding decisions about travel - which courses and field trips should I take, what stops along the way should I make. I'm travel-worn and peopled out. (People-worn and traveled out?)

Above: Tangled, prickly, but still blooming (Russian thistle AKA tumbleweed ).

Prior to leaving two weeks ago, I had plans to visit yet another past field area in the next couple or three days, then non-finalized plans for side trips on the way to and from the coming GSA meeting. I have, today, been wondering about changing my GSA plans (once again) in order to make it to a poorly scheduled SEG field workshop on uranium deposits in Albuquerque, which would mean flying to Portland instead of driving, would mean leaving GSA two days early because the course overlaps with the meeting even though they call it "post-meeting," and would mean flying from Portland to Albuquerque and then flying back to some possibly nearby (or not) western airport.

Or, instead of that, I could go to an expensive field course on copper deposits in Arizona, which conveniently follows - by several days so as not to be too crowded in time and place - the Northwest Mining Association Convention in December. The copper course is run by people who know what they are doing. (Not that the uranium course isn't, mind you.) I'll probably do the latter (copper). I'd need to sign up for the uranium course today; I'll need to sign up for the copper course by next weekend. Besides, the price of copper is holding; the price of uranium isn't.

The sign said Middlegate, but where were we, really?

While crossing Eighmile Flat on our way to Middlegate, we were approached rapidly from behind by two flashing, wailing, Churchill County sheriff vehicles. They beat us to Middlegate by several minutes. Why were they there? Does anyone really know? Hopefully the answer will not be found in Stephen King's Desperation, which I am currently reading.

Other questions need to be answered - will I stay one night with a cousin on my way up to Portland? Will I spend more than one night at the lake on the way? Will I make an Oregon detour on my way back? Or should I just blow all that off and fly up to Alaska for about a week. Maybe I'll just stay here and stare at a wall until I regain some internal mental composure.

Thesis Area Mined!

The Pinson adit, from whence came jasperoid hand samples for my thesis, no longer exists - it was located in the northwest portion of what is now the A Pit of the Pinson Mine, near the bridge area between the A and CX Pits.

North is up in this air-photo image from a recent field trip to Barrick's Pinson Mine; the scale bar is 1000 feet. This digital photo of the paper image shown on the field trip contains some minor distortion due to operator error (mine!). The air-photo appears to be identical to what you can see on Google Earth, with one exception: Google Earth wraps the air-photo image over older topography, which looks strange when you try to view the existing pits using an oblique angle.

The shed or old barn where the samples were stored is likewise no longer in existence. It was located in the main drainage - Granite Creek - north of the combined A and B Pits, possibly about where the trees or shrubs in the creek are still present. In this MSRMaps map, the shed was located about where the old road crossed Granite Creek. The Pinson Pit in the MSRMaps image is the original, 1980's A Pit [from a map dated 7/1/1988 according to my original link]; the smaller-than-now A Pit is where the adit was located. The adit was put in by the Cordex I Syndicate in the early 1970's, prior to my sample collecting in 1976.

While collecting samples, I stayed at the home of Fred and Dorothy Barnes on the site of the then inactive Getchell Mine, in a house that is probably not there anymore. In order to call their house, you had to get an operator to ring Getchell #1 or Getchell #2. From outside Nevada, one of the last states using toll stations or ring downs (into at least the mid 1980's - or early 1990's?), you had to tell the operator to put you through to a Nevada operator. Out-of-state operators generally didn't believe numbers such as Midas #2 and Coaldale #1 still existed, and would insist that you give them an area code and a 7-digit phone number.

Two Years Ago Today: The Loneliest Phone

Two years ago today, just past the western sign marking the turnoff to Sand Mountain, near Churchill County milepost 47 east of Fallon, Nevada...
...the loneliest phone in America - or at least the sign for the loneliest phone - was in plain view on Highway 50 on the side of the road. The two photos above were taken on April 30, 2007.
This photo of the sign on the east side of the Sand Mountain turnoff was taken on December 28, 2006. The sign is a bit shot up, which is a fairly standard thing in Nevada. I have no photos of the so-called loneliest phone, but you can read about it here and here, and see a great photo of it here. It is described as a microwave, solar-powered phone.
By April 12, 2008, the signs and phone were both gone. The phone was removed by the phone company, according to this site, for getting shot up by passing drivers and Sand Mountain recreators too many times. I don't know exactly when the phone disappeared, and I never made a call from it.

There are, or have been, phones and phone booths farther out in the middle of nowhere - and probably far lonelier, given that Sand Mountain is a major recreation area near Fallon and is only about 1.5 hours from Reno - including this now-gone loneliest phone booth near Cima Dome in the Mojave Desert of California.