Happy Birthday, David

Gary said:
:rofl: OK - that's good to know!

BTW - was out your way not too long ago, we got dragged into a Superfund site up near Jamestown CO. Beautiful country!

Gary
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It is beautiful up there - did you get a chance to go into Rocky Mountain NP?

There are Superfund sites all over the place out here. Mostly abandoned mines leaching chemicals. I was just up by one a few days ago above treeline - the water leaking out of a mine shaft was leaving a residue that was solid blue. It was a neat color, but then you realize that the stream you're looking at is flowing into the stream that feeds your water supply, and you realize that it explains the voices in your head.... :)
 
Damn lawyers and thier birthdays sheesh. Go flying get the hell out of the office.
 
Obi Heed Kenobi said:
It is beautiful up there - did you get a chance to go into Rocky Mountain NP?
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Sure did - loved it! Actually had spent quite a bit of time there back 10 years ago. Did a mine closure near Walden (never did one before, lot of fun and got to learn all about explosives, there were close to 20,000lbs of abandoned explosives there!! :yikes:). Thought Grand Lake was great, Estes - only so-so, did a lot of hiking and fishing. Rocky Mtn. Park is one of my favorites.

You live in a great area of the country.

Gary
 
Gary said:
Sure did - loved it! Actually had spent quite a bit of time there back 10 years ago. Did a mine closure near Walden (never did one before, lot of fun and got to learn all about explosives, there were close to 20,000lbs of abandoned explosives there!! :yikes:). Thought Grand Lake was great, Estes - only so-so, did a lot of hiking and fishing. Rocky Mtn. Park is one of my favorites.

You live in a great area of the country.

Gary
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Get this - the old school here has been abandoned for some time (probably since the 1950's). Recently, there were some kids that broke in and found some dynamite underneath the school. Who knows when it got there...hopefully not while school was still in session. But, and I'm sure you know this from having dealt with 10 tons of the stuff, when dynamite/TNT gets old, it gets unstable, and the dead giveaway is that it starts getting very fine webbing on it, almost looking like spiderweb-type stuff. I guess it's so unstable that almost anything could set it off.

So, the town marshall crawled under the school with a flashlight, gets up there, and sees a box full of explosives covered with that webbing. He thinks, "oh ****, how do I get turned around in here and out without bumping something." They ended up evacuating half the town, and digging a hole down to where the explosives were to pull them up - couldn't risk dragging them down the passageway. It was an interesting day in town, bomb squads from JeffCo and Denver. Fun times!
 
Obi Heed Kenobi said:
Get this - the old school here has been abandoned for some time (probably since the 1950's). Recently, there were some kids that broke in and found some dynamite underneath the school. Who knows when it got there...hopefully not while school was still in session. But, and I'm sure you know this from having dealt with 10 tons of the stuff, when dynamite/TNT gets old, it gets unstable, and the dead giveaway is that it starts getting very fine webbing on it, almost looking like spiderweb-type stuff. I guess it's so unstable that almost anything could set it off.

Fun times!
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Yep!! Had the same OH s**t! moment when we opened up the old explosives locker!! It was 30 year old nitroglycerine dynamite and 10 lb ammonium nitrate/fuel oil socks, which, over time weeped nitroglycerine all over the floor.

Actually the Colorado Environmental people were pretty reasonable in giving us an emergency incineration permit. We stuffed the locker with hay, added diesel and burned it up in a wonderful multi-colored fireball, none of it actually exploded! You are right about the number of old mines and the mine seepage problem, all I can say is we did our part to help protect some small part of Colorado. We will probably get drug into another one over time, so I may be back!

Gary
 
Gary said:
Yep!! Had the same OH s**t! moment when we opened up the old explosives locker!! It was 30 year old nitroglycerine dynamite and 10 lb ammonium nitrate/fuel oil socks, which, over time weeped nitroglycerine all over the floor.

Actually the Colorado Environmental people were pretty reasonable in giving us an emergency incineration permit. We stuffed the locker with hay, added diesel and burned it up in a wonderful multi-colored fireball, none of it actually exploded! You are right about the number of old mines and the mine seepage problem, all I can say is we did our part to help protect some small part of Colorado. We will probably get drug into another one over time, so I may be back!

Gary
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Ahhhh - that's exactly what it was! I couldn't remember the exact name, but that's it. Probably left over from the same era. Some of the places, it's like the people who were there just up and walked away.

Let me know if/when you're back out.
 
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