Big stuff: Things made from centimeters thick steel still brake like made from chewing gum

My shift was from 12 noon to 12 at night (plus 1 hour to do checks and inform the crosshift about what is going on, plus 1,5 hr driving...). Althoug during the day it was mostly about 20-25 degrees, at night it snowed every now and then! IN JUNE!! Weird country.

After setting and cementing the casing (threaded pipe) in the hole this valve is placed on top. Hole finished.

Think I am ready for that bank vault now

Working on my torch cutting skills: cutting holes in the bottom casing pipe so that the cement can be pumped out of the casing in case the special (drillable) cement valve at the bottom does not work.

A clevis as thick as my wrist...

All this heavy stuff needs to be pre-torqued to very high values. That is done by pulling hydraulically on these "thongs" with tons of force. Got to mind your fingers when playing with these things, the thongs alone weigh about 200kg.

In the hole, the mud motor is located right above the bit. Due to the bend in the housing, the bit will not cut straight but in the direction of the bend. This means that if you do not rotate the drillstring while drilling you go in a certain direction. If on the other hand you do rotate the drillstring slowly you go straight.

These "flexible collars" go in next and provide the weight on the bit. The drill string is kept in tension while drilling! The stainless steel collar on the left is required when the direction is checked with a compass (every 4 rods when I was there) and costs about 10.000 dollar... The divice that is lowered into the drillstring (called "camera") measures magnetic north and inclination. By plotting these as the hole progresses you have an accurate idea where the bit is.

...Along with the tricone that is screwed onto it

After drilling straight (at an angle of 19 degrees) for some time the directional mud motor goes in to direct the hole to the right spot in the coal seams.

Drilling mud with a foaming agent is injected into the air that is pumped down. The resulting foam is better at carrying the cutting up the hole. It's the helper's (=my) task to mix it all up.

The Down The Hole Hammer is ready to go down the hole... This method uses (you'd never guess) an air-driven hammer that sits right behind the bit. This way no energy is lost in the drillrods. If the method can be used (for instance not when there is a lot of formation water flowing into the hole) it generally is the fastest way of drilling through competent rock.

With this cyclone the cuttings are separated from the foam and air. Every now and than the foam gets a bit enthausiastic and overflows the pit,. You then spray it with de-foamer which does not help anything and let it overflow...

Next step is to cement the casing in, using 1 m3 of cement

Then you place the surface casing, in this case two pipes, that are welded together.

Each hole starts with drilling about 15m with this big tricone (abbout 60 cm diameter, compare with the 4 liter water jug)

After travveling this road for 40 minutes you are back in town...

Wildernis areas in Colorado tend to be very pretty.

The site from above

Back to work!

The last two weeks before my visa ran out I spent drilling in Paonia, Colorado, where Joey had spent two weeks working during my holiday.
The purpose of drilling is to pump methane gas out of multiple coal seams at 500-600m depth to reduce compulsory mine shutdowns (air-methane mixtures are explosive at 5 percent methane) at the time of mining it.
By using angle holes, multiple coal seam locations can be reached from one drill site, kind of handy in an (offical!) wilderness area where every road needs to be cut with a dozer.
Method of drilling was directional (mud motor with tricone bit) and DTH (down the hole hammer) for the straight parts.

But fellow-offroaders with giant cars were close this time, saving me an hour of digging snow.

In the mountains in front of Salt Lake City I got stuck for the first time! After driving all day I was too lazy to explore the snow trail and the front right wheel sunk into a hole of 60 cm deep... (bottom left on picture). that was enough to get the car on its belly

Short break on the 12 hr trip to Salt Lake (for me, not for the car)

And some windsurfers around the corner! Nice wind, no waves though. I was envious enough as it was

Lighthouse at the point: battered but beautiful

These guys apparently like this spot as well

Point Bonita. According to the maps I saw, there are over 40 shipwrecks between me and the point... Pretty treatcherous waters!

Headed for point Bonita at the left

After dropping Antje off at the airport the next day I decided to drive out to the headland opposite San Francisco, and behold: sunny weather over the Golden Gate!

But at least it was completely visible for a change: most of the time it appeared to be covered in shreds of fog blown in from the sea, even though San Francisco wat bathing in the sun.

Back in slow water again... In San Francisco the Golden Gate Bridge was flanked by clouds as it had been 2 weeks ago

The east side of the valley

That's me vith adrenaline sprouting out of my ears

Yosemite Valley seen from Half Dome

500m straight down

Laying flat on my breast looking over the edge I had the adrenaline kick of the year.... looking down 500m over a straight granite cliff and another kilometer down to the valley floor. The edge rocks appeared to stick 2m out into the void, leaving me feeling as if I was falling! Any movement made me inch more off the ledge too as I was laying on a slight decline...
After that I noticed the cliff to my left and I was left hoping it was a more stable rock I was on

The grade is up to 45 degrees: less steep than you'd say from the previous pictures. Good to have the cable though...

Apperently I'm not the only one who forgot to take gloves

The last couple of hundred meters up is just left of me, straight up the granite with the help of a steel cable.

The four guards of the mountain

El grande hunchback or Halfdome from the other side. The way up is just left of the snow stripe.

c'mon, how can you call hunting a challenge here! No wonder they use bow 'n arrows. I could have gotten one with my keyring

Interesting incounter on the way up (rattlesnake... they do rattle!)

Nevada falls (drop more than 200m)

Lunch with a view

Vernal falls

Better not raft in this stream

The first part of the trail to half dome leads past two big waterfalls. On the picture the "mist trail" leading to the first one... full on storm more likely...

Half Dome: a giant granite monolith that pushed its way up high into the earth's crust a long time ago. The other half never made it up so far.
After reading the discription of the trail (27km, 1400m vertical, extremely strenuous) it was a challenge I could not decline...had'nt "worked out" over the past 3 months for nothing of course