Welcome!

This blogspot will give you a fair idea of what I did during the training period that I enjoyed in the US. The idea behind the training was for me to get to know drilling methods and equipment, so that I can actually say something useful about these in my job as product support engineer.
It worked out really well, and despite long hours there was some time for seeing the sights as well. Ah, well, just look at the pictures, read the comments and see for your self.

The site works as follows: At the top are the newest pictures and as you scroll down you get to the older ones. Older posts can be found via the Archive links at the right of the page. If you'd like to view the posts in chronological order, start with the oldest archive and at the bottom of the page, and work your way up.

Enjoy!

Floris.

Every now and then it is good to feel you chose the right study.... Impressive stuff eh!

The trucks drive only to this point: the entrance to an obsolete railway tunnel, now in use for conveyor belts to the Salt Lake City Valley where the concentrator plant is.

Bad timing of some truck drivers to all decide at once they want to be loaded by the shovel

That white speck is the other Boart Longyear rig that currently works at the mine

Those penny-looking glasses give an extra 8-fold zoom...

Up to 4 Boart Longyear / Lang rigs work in the mine. Here the one where Joey spent the last week, doing coring work.

Where you see the green water is the bottom.

The day after Joey and I decided to go up to the Kinnacott Visitor's center to get a good look at the mine: the greatest hole ever dug with 4km wide and 1.2 km deep. Metal of interest is mainly Copper but also Gold and others.

I know, I know... should have spent the night here...

The road over which I drove in the day before lies om the river bank below... It all is rather big again.

Nick flying down

I flipped the bike only once... no scratches on it though. However on me a couple

Mom, dad: I was not really considering doing it...

Behind me Castle Valley and Castle Rock. In this area many Hollywood films have been shot.

Stunning views and dropoffs

With the Biking Brothers on top of the Porcupine Ridge, one of the most famous biking trails around

In the shuttle bus that helped me part of the way up I met two other mountainbikers, Erik and Nick. With them I rode first an hour up, then 3 hours and 20km (!!) down. Here the struggle up

This would be my toy for the next 4 hours, although the fact that it was $3500, 2 weeks old and uninsured besides my signed blanco credit card slip did mean I should be a bit careful

Castle Rock (left one). On the cliff on the horizon (behind it) I did some bicicling the day after

After our crew was being rotated (they work 2 weeks and have 1 week off) and I phoned the office to find out what the plans were for the next day, where I was supposed to go to Kinnacott mine next to Salt Lake City. Bob Johnson (Coordinator and Safety Supervisor) however told me he could not get it set up anymore for me for only one or two days, so I had to take the day off. Altough I really would have liked to spend those days at the biggest man-made excavation on earth (a hole in the mountains of 1.2km deep and 4km wide, see later picures), the mountain bike Mekka of the world lay exactly en route home. The dicision to spend the night in Moab, Utah was quickly made. On the way over there the sandstone cliff landscape became more and more impressive

And home-made fuel skidders that have a rather blunt road going qualities

Again heaps of toys to play with like winchtrucks, backhoe and cranes