Recently Th’ Gaussling & family spent some time at a mineral spa in Idaho Springs, CO. Having been to a number of mineral springs in the West, I have some sense of what is reasonable and ordinary.  All hot spring operators preach or otherwise encourage the benefits of soaking in a hot mineral bath. Mud treatments and massage are lucrative extras offered by proprietors of mineral springs.  Sadly, by constitution Th’ Gaussling is refractory to the mystical enchantments of this hot saline jive (wisdom or weakness?). I really need to see a mechanism.

Hot springs are egalitarian destinations where the young and old, rail-thin and morbidly obese, tatoo’d and blank skinned can comingle in the hydrothermal aqua from the plutonic realm. 

This particular hot spring was a hotel-pool establishment that had seen better times, but the proprietors were managing growth by adding cabins and a ribs catering operation.  We enjoyed our stay there and will probably return.

My only critical comment is that the water was not particularly loaded with minerals and didn’t favor the bather with even a whiff of sulfur.  A hydrothermal pool without the primordial tang of sulfur is but half of the experience. 

We visited the Phoenix Mine, which is a shoestring gold mining operation a few miles west of Idaho Springs.  If you want to understand Colorado, you have to come to grips with mining. It is one of the two great enthusiasms that lead the settlement wave in Colorado in the mid 1800’s- gold / silver and sanitariums (tuberculosis).  

Much of the activity stemming from the gold rush of 1859 occured along what is now the I-70 mountain corridor.  The discovery of placer deposits of gold and silver quickly lead to hard rock mining activity in the many canyons connecting with Clear Creek.  Placer gold was also found in streams in what is now the Denver Metro area and Cripple Creek.

The recovery of gold from stream sediment (placer gold) is called prospecting.  Hacking it out of hardrock is called mining.  The recovery of placer gold uses somewhat different technology from hardrock mining. Placer gold is isolated by direct settling of the higher density metal from a slurry of gravel and sand. The prospector uses a pan, sluice, rocker, or trommel. The owner of this particular mine has several miles of stream that you can pan from to get the experience of seeing placer gold first hand.  It is hard work and seems to appeal to people who like to gamble.

The tour guide stated that the Phoenix mine operation is centered on a sandstone vein containing 6-15 troy oz of gold per ton (the number varied considerably during the tour so it is hard to tell what it actually is).  But what is interesting is that the vein is a sandstone matrix varying from a few inches to 4 ft thick with a large variety of metals- Au, Ag, Cu, Pb, and Zn.  Glinting xtal faces could be seen as well as green Cu salts in the “Resurrection” vein.  As you walk through the mine it can be seen quite plainly.  The miners just follow the vein where ever it goes.

This is a type of mining that targets a highly concentrated vein, so the amount of mass that has to be processed is relatively small as these things go. This is in contrast to very large ore bodies that contain highly dilute levels of gold value. Such operations require large scale equipment for beneficiation and produce vast quantities of tailings. The operators of the Phoenix mine limit their beneficiation to milling and frothing. Concentrates are sent to Canada for the final recovery and refining. The guide was reluctant to say it, but my guess is that they ship out drums of liquid concentrate.

The other great enthusiasm for Colorado in the 19th century was for the convalescence of patients afflicted with consumption, later called tuberculosis. The thin dry air and the sunny climate was thought to be beneficial for consumption patients. Throughout history, hot springs have attracted the afflicted and the infirm.  The abundance of hot springs in Colorado attracted spa operators who catered to tourists.  The railroad provided the means of transportation for patients to arrive from distant quarters for their convalescence.  

Colorado Springs was an early destination for consumption patients as was Glennwood Springs. The ill-tempered old west figure Doc Holliday died from a long bout with consumption and is buried somewhere under a subdivision in Glennwood Springs, his marker sits on a hilltop cemetery above town.