I hear that it is still summer somewhere. It has snowed almost every day here on the mountains. Each day it gets a little closer. Today it was about halfway down! The leaves are turning here too. I’m really excited to see them change, it’s going to be really pretty I think. I just hope that it doesn’t snow on them first.

Things have been going fine here. We have been preparing for a while because today we had a visit from a bunch of investors. They just flew in for the day and we had to show them all the sparkly rocks and cross-sections and maps that we’ve made. They were all pretty used to working in offices so they were very stunned by our camp. In a good way. They couldn’t believe how well stocked and organized our kitchen was and how well the camp seemed to be running. It’s a good thing that they weren’t here a few days ago when both drills were broken down!

The drills are both back on line now. The camp should be getting back on track soon. I’ve been in the office for a couple days getting the map ready for the investors. It’s been nice not hiking up mountains every day. I feel like I’ve been getting a bit of energy back. Last night, Mike and I stayed up late so that we could watch for auroras. There were a few out so we tried to take pictures with the tripod and my camera. They turned out okay, but most of them were not focused very well. I’m not sure how we can fix that. It was really exciting taking pictures of aurora for the first time though, hopefully we’ll get another chance before Micheal heads home.



Mike leaves camp on September 8th and hopefully I won’t be too far behind him. He’s done a really good job here, so I’ll have some pretty big shoes to fill. I have to take over his job of core logging, and he’ll start teaching me all about that next week.



There are many different things that I’ll have to do after Mike leaves, like saw rocks. Using the saw requires you to wear lots of protective gear that makes you look as good as this:



Just so he doesn’t feel bad, I’ll post a dumb picture of myself, also wearing protective gear:



That’s me wearing the stupid bubble helmet while I’m riding in the back of our souped up golf cart – the Rhino. Don’t worry though, Mike looks way better without all that gear. Even in the morning:



Funniest part is, he took that picture himself. I wish I could be there to see what his parents say when they see his neard (neard=neck+beard).

I should be around for at least a few more weeks. I’ll try to keep the Blog updated more often once I’m not traversing every day. Sounds like we will be finishing drilling on the 15th (if the water lines don’t freeze before then) and then a week or so of catching up on the backlog and taking down camp.

Have fun everyone – enjoy wearing t-shirts and shorts!
Melissa

The first frost has arrived!!

We got the first big frost of the fall here in camp. Yesterday morning it was freezing… quite literally. Everything was covered in frost until the sun came over the ridge and our house for washing off the core was even half frozen. I guess this really isn’t that exciting, but when things stay the same any change is good, even if it is freezing temperatures. And it really signifies the season changing into fall. The leaves are also well on their way to falling off. There are already many different colours developing in the trees and shrubs around camp.

Oh, and I saw my first star of the summer last night, and some of the guys here saw an Aurora the other night. It is actually getting dark out, finally. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

mike.

Check out our ride!

For the last week we have been working on putting together a geological map of the property using old maps and new field data that we are collecting. It’s been going well, but it’s tough to cover a lot of ground on foot and we don’t normally have a helicopter in camp. Today we lucked out though, the second drill was flown into camp today and so we were able to get a ride out to start our traverse. Normally, we have a Bell 206 (Long Ranger) Helicopter that comes into camp but today…the BIG Heli came to town. The beauuutiful Bell 204 – think about the big Helicopters with the sliding door that you see in Vietnam war movies, although this one is painted like a large dragonfly or bumblebee.




We got picked up in style and because I was ‘navigating’ I got to sit up front. The only rule was – I had to not touch the controls. This heli has dual controls so there is a joystick and foot pedals on my side, moving in unison with the pilot. It was really in my best interests to obey that rule.



Mike and Margo had fun sitting in the back, where they had enough space to have their own dance party. I guess it’s quite a novelty to have to WALK over to open the door to get out. Talk about powerful! Absolutely effortless to get this heli over the mountain. Unfortunately our flight was altogether too short, and in no time (maybe 5 min) we were put down at our starting spot.



Then we were on our own to get back to camp. It was a pretty good day, we covered a lot of ground. I’ve been pretty sick with a cold so I did my best keeping up to Micheal. He’s been on a diet of Kit Kats and Chocolate pudding for a couple months and still manages to bound up hills. We rolled back into camp at about 8:30, so we’re both beat. It will be an easier day tomorrow, so I’ll get to recover. Mike on the other hand will have to manage core from 2 drills. I guess he’ll need to get back on that Kit Kat and pudding diet right away.

Melissa

It has been almost a week that I've been in the fancy schmancy Blende camp, north of Mayo. My time at the Lodge was absolutely amazing and it was very hard to leave. The people were so special there and the location was absolutely stunning. It's quite an isolated place, only accessible by VERY robust vehicles. Like the one pictured below:


This is the Czechoslovakian Army truck that the owners of the lodge use to transport people and gear back and forth from the 'good' part of the Canol Road to the Lodge. It rides like a dream!

There were lots of things to do in the evenings. The weather was usually nice so we would find things to do outside. Although, there were some hazards:


This is Bronwen trying to catch up on her reading with a little help from the horses. We also had intense games of Extreme Croquet:


Which required serious skill to avoid the piles of horse manure spaced throughout the course. And if we ever got bored of that, we could always watch Bronwen juggle:


Getting back to work though, we got to see some really neat wildlife:



Photos courtesy of Josh. Luckily we only saw Grizzlies from the chopper.
Of course, it all had to come to an end:


But I was extremely fortunate to end up in Mike’s camp for the rest of my time here. I managed to snag a couple days off in Mayo with Mike, to preserve my sanity and catch up on some must needed sleep. Thanks again to Kerri and Trevor in Mayo, we had a wonderful time. Tomorrow we get to go out on traverse together, which is fantastic! Take care and see you all soon.

~the signpost~


~mel and me at the signpost~



To the Signpost We Went

Melissa has made her way to Blende, finally. I went out to Mayo for a couple of days last week to meet her and we stayed with Trevor and Kerri again. The one afternoon we were there they took us on a drive back up to Keno City to try and see the signpost. Luckily the weather was more cooperative and we got to see it, it was actually quite beautiful out. For anyone that does not know, the signpost is a post on the top of the hill with a whole wack of signs with distances to various places around the word. It is a nice view from the top as you can see in the pictures.

The first day Melissa was in camp we went on a traverse with the other girls in her crew and our head geo, Bob, so they could all get familiar with the rocks in the area. Melissa will be mapping the area around the drilling, so we can get a better handle on the area.

I have included some pictures from the signpost, at the top, as well as from our trav, at the bottom.

mike.


~melissa looking at some outcrop on trav~


~mel on a ridge (on left)~


~the mode of transport around the property~