ABSTRACT

I had seen pictures of the abandoned Summitville gold mine. I had read endless facts and figures about the damage that had been done to this remote region in southern Colorado, and about how a mining company had carved almost 1000 acres of soil and rock out of a craggy mountainside in its quest to extract gold. But nothing had prepared me for the sheer scale of the mine workings. Driving up to the mine site, after a long uphill haul through dense pine forests and alpine meadows, we must have looked like Lilliputians entering a giant’s world.