HOME  »  Adirondacks X-Ski 2008  (26 Slides)     [Page 1 of 1]

In the past few years, there hasn't been very much snow for our winter trip.     Not this year ! (That's the picnic table... under there somewhere... )     Henry's cousin (Chuck Barton) gave us a great tour, describing the geology and process.     But first on the agenda was a tour of the Barton garnet mine (thanks Henry !) This is the main pit.     Susan and Jerry (Jerry seems to have pre-injured himself for this ski trip...)     Me and Chuck Barton (how come I don't get a hard hat ??)     Uh Oh ! Looks like the mining operation is about to start.. Here come's the digger !     As you can see, winter poses no problem for this operation.     That's the crushing facility at the bottom, and at the top, connected by a conveyor belt, is the seperation building.     The left-over material, called tailings, gets taken outside, sent up the hill in a hose, and piled up.     Here's a closer look.     And the final product (pure garnet), gets hauld away !     As as the crushed material swirls down the swirly thinger, the heavier feldspar goes to the outside, and garnet goes down the little collection holes in the inside of each turn. Neat !     They use a couple different techniques. One of the most interesting was the swirly thingers. You see garnet is lighter than the surrounding rock (I think).     I finally got my own hard hat ! Sharp !     This is the control room, where Walt has an eye on the entire operation....     Which I wouldn't have understood, except Chuck did a great job explaining everything.     It's here in the seperation facility that they get down to the business of seperating the garnet from the feldspar.     Well, enough of this touring bit, it's time for some cross-country skiing !     Smart-ass sign people.... sheesh...     Susan was unstoppable... Just keet skiing...     And skiing.... And skiing.... Eventually, though, the snow REALLY started coming down ! Got kind of scary, so we decided to head back in....     Although, the deep snow got kind of tricky, eh Susan ?     Back at the homestead, all was peaceful....     I think Jerry got a little Cabin Fever, with his injuries and all :)     The Whole Snow Gang says Goodbye for Now !

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