Neither of us heard Stoney leave early in the morning, but we were both up when he came home to make us breakfast! Not kidding, he was on duty, but able to come back home and cook up a storm of bacon, eggs and hash potatoes. This guy is a catch! Jon and I enjoyed our second shower in as many days and chilled out over breakfast.
When Stoney went off to work for real, we dordelled a little more putting some washing on and getting an inside look at how Clark behaved when Stoney was away. He alternated between sitting in the living room while watching the door, lying down on the floor while watching the door and sitting right under the door while watching the door.
At 11:30am, our washing still wasn’t dry after over an hour in the dryer, so we put it in for another round and got out of the house. On Stoney’s suggestion, we drove through town and another mile along a small road out to the Mayflower Mill, something of an abandoned factory that excited Jon. I was happy to go along for the ride to see what all the fuss was about.
The old mill sat in the valley between snow-capped mountains and looked in a pretty good state having not been used in over twenty years. We parked on the side of the road and walked up to the locked gate. The sign said that tours were offered daily in the summer, but the padlock and chain connecting the two gates clearly meant we weren’t supposed to go in. Problem was, the gap between the gates was easily a person wide so we could easily dip under the chain and we were in! I felt very naughty, but with Jon as my guide, we walked up the hill towards the first building. The place was completely abandoned except for a couple of trucks parked far up on the hill that I kept glancing at.
I shoved at a door to what was the office building and we found a whole lot of documents piled and stashed everywhere. Everything from engineer’s notes to payroll sheets and blueprints. It was all covered in a layer of dust, but otherwise perfectly preserved. We crept this way and that to see what was in the adjoining rooms, Jon using his headtorch for light like a pro and me with my phone in hand. After telling me to be careful with my footing and what was over my head, I tried to be very conscious of my surroundings and we managed to exit the first building without any mishaps. Outside, we wandered past a couple of very old cars, left to rust where they’d last been parked but they still had their charm.
I climbed some very icy stairs of the kitchen building in an attempt to get in but no dice, it was locked. Jon tried the main door, same result, but when he turned the knob on the door marked “DANGER”, it opened straight away. Sweet! This building was more recently used, probably for the summer tours, but it still looked to be in disrepair, maybe halfway through renovation. We found a bit more paperwork, remnants of a till and a cupboard full of building tools.
Back outside, we were both hopeful that we’d be able to get into the main mill building. We tried the tram building which housed the buckets that were drawn by cable between the mill and the nearby mines. Amazingly, there were still buckets hanging from the steel cables that ran out into the mountains. Probably because they’d stopped work one day and never come back. After trying all the doors of the main building without any luck and peering hopefully into the windows, we looked under some rubber flaps of roller doors without much exciting behind them. Despite the risk of being seen by the owners of the trucks on the top of the hill, we moved around the back of the building.
Another door that didn’t open and up a set of dodgy-looking but sturdy stairs and we were almost above the mill, looking at the top of the conveyor that entered the building near the roof. There was some cool machinery outside that we deduced was to do with the grinding process, but we really just wanted to get inside! More walking around the building and more junk strewn about the place, we continued to imagine what everything had been used for back in the day. There was everything from rubber wheels, pumps, turbines, brackets, electric motors to timber and general bits of shit.
When we saw a single white door at the side of the main building, we both assumed it would be locked so dawdled on up to it, continuing our inspection of the things lying about the place. At the door, I suggested Jon open it since he’d had better luck than me at the last building. He grabbed the door knob, turned it and the door easily opened into the mill. Wow! We looked around us feeling like sneaky little kids doing something very naughty, then snuck inside. Closing the door behind us, we were alone in the giant mill.
We ducked under and over the huge pieces of machinery as we started searching every corner of the building. After climbing down a metal ladder to ground floor, we snuck between some huge electric motors and out into a foyer where the summer tours obviously started. This was brilliant! Now we had information signs to tell us what everything was about! We had a look in the gift shop where a few dollars had been left out on the counter, completely untouched in nearly a year. I was happy that we weren’t young idiots out to vandalise and steal stuff, just curious engineers exploring an abandoned place illegally and without leaving a trace. Next to the giftshop was a workshop, with big ol’ tools and every piece of machinery a mill maintenance man would ever want. We followed the information signs to the floating part of the mill, where the processed ore floats to the top of a solution to be collected.
The place was dark and cold, the tin walls and roof not offering any insulation. As we climbed to the office that sat above the factory, we found a chemical lab that had all sorts of testing equipment and samples still laid out on the benches, as if ready to be tested any day now. In the next room was the electrical store room with fuses as big as my forearm and the biggest light bulb I’ve ever seen. When we found a blackboard in the electrical office, we left our mark but left the maintenance notes untouched. We came across one of many banks of electrical control switches and resisted the temptation to flick them all on to hear the whirrs of the factory come to life. We figured that would be stretching our luck with the whole trespassing thing.
I shook my legs trying to keep warm as we descended down the worn timber stairs back into the factory. We continued wandering for another good hour or so, completely losing ourselves in the network of access routes and machinery. The highlight for me was learning about the washing machine-style barrels that contained ore and steel balls to grind it all up into sand. The balls started out as perfect spheres about 10cm in diameter. They would put a new set of balls in every 4 hours because they would grind down to nothing in that time!
When we climbed beside a huge tank that was still three-quarters full of ore, we found a walkway where the balls entered the building. As a result of the signed “ball avalanche”, steel balls were strewn all over the place, including on the stairway. Safety issue much? After touching the balls like we weren’t supposed to, we back tracked to get out of the building and get warm again. We’d been exploring for more than three hours, completely losing track of time. One of the coolest experiences of my trip and definitely something I wouldn’t have done alone. It was even up there on Jon’s scale of impressive abandoned places and he’s visited a few.
As we got closer to our original entry point, we started hearing the noise of a motor outside and freaked out a little that we’d be caught. When we neared the door and found it banging around in the wind, we were even more cautious that we might be found out. When I say “we”, it was mostly me freaking out. Outside, the sun immediately started warming our bodies and we discovered the door would no longer close behind us. After trying a few different things, we ended up propping it shut with a heavy piece of steel an walked away as if we’d never been there, but chuffed that we’d had our own private tour. We climbed the hill behind the mill to the duck pond, which is actually just a big mound of dirt left over from the milling process. The top was flat and was used as a shooting range, obvious thanks to the hundreds of bullet casings all over the ground. We got a great view of the town of Silverton in the valley, nestled between mountain tops. We scrambled down the hill to get back to the car, not having to jump any more fences. We’d completely gotten away with it and were keen to get warm.
We’d been in touch with Stoney and he was up for a late lunch so we went to meet him at the ambulance station. He was waiting outside when we got there and was ready to give us a tour. Inside the garage, we hopped into the older ambulance out of the two and he went through everything inside. They have an impressive amount of gear and the questions from me and Jon kept flowing and flowing. Outside the ambulance, the whole room was filled with equipment, mostly for use in the snow, like skiis, ropes and recovery gear. Being a paramedic in the mountains is a much different gig from being one in a city. Since Stoney was on duty, we had to take the response vehicle to lunch only a few doors down. Before we set off, Jon wanted to see some lights and hear some sirens so Stoney happily obliged.
After stopping in at The Avalanche Brewery to discover the deck wasn’t quite finished, we returned to yesterday’s lunch spot, Pickle Barrel, since it was still the only open place in town. Contrary to yesterday, the whole place was packed and only the owner was running around serving tables and doing a very good job of it. Pissed that we couldn’t get our table by the fire, we sat at the front of the restaurant where we gave death stares to the people that held the door open longer than necessary. We had another yummy meal while we talked about all sorts, including a concept called breaking the uda-loop.
Full bellies an hour later, Jon and Stoney drove home in the response car while I walked up the road and drove my car back. Clark was very happy to see Stoney again so soon. We discovered that our laundry was still not dry so went for another hour and a half cycle. We were planning on leaving around that time, so it delayed us a bit. Stoney went back to the office and we promised to swing by before leaving town. It never happened. After hanging out on the couch, me blogging, Jon reading on the internet and seeing it was snowing outside, we were in no mood to go anywhere so decided it would be great to stay another night. A few messages to Stoney and he was happy for us to stay and so we settled in. We folded our laundry and continued relaxing on the couch.
Just as the sun was going down behind the sea of white, Clark had a different look while sitting at the door and watching it. Sensing the need for a bathroom break, I got his leash and took him around the block. I wish I’d taken my phone to take photos because it was a magical time of day. Snow was falling gently and had started settling on the ground. There was no wind and despite the white stuff, wasn’t too cold. As we walked, I used Stoney’s clever carabiner system to tie Clark’s leash around my waist which meant I could put my hands in my pockets. I let Clark lead the way, trying my best to stop him from running into things, which he did often thanks to his blindness. I was curious to see how far he went and whether he would find his way back home. We walked at least four blocks and had a small altercation with a small Rottweiler looking dog, but otherwise had a nice walk. After the flour blocks, Clark turned us about and found home without any difficulty. What a smartie. As soon as we got home, I found a doggie bag and walked back around the corner to pick up the doo-doo Clark had left, then it was inside in the warmth the rest of the night.
Jon and I only had to entertain ourselves for a short while before Stoney was back again to hang out, Clark over the moon to see him. The boys spent the evening watching youtube videos about climbing ropes and gear, all of us having different opinions on them. I tuned out mostly, doing a bit of writing but also trying to read one of the “Series of Unfortunate Events” books off Stoney’s shelf. It was too depressing for me so I gave in after a while. Stoney heated up some Mexican food for him and Jon while I passed, still full from our late lunch.
Around midnight, Stoney called it a night, heading back to base to sleep at the office, per the requirement for paramedics. Lucky Clark got to go with him. I folded out the couch in the living room this time, figuring I’d try out the double bed version and had a comfortable night by the fire underneath a few blankets.
