This past fall it was decided that my grandson, Silas, who helps take such good care of his younger brother, deserved to do something adventurous.
When the local rockhounding group was invited to go visit the old Mammoth Copper & Gold Mine, we joined in. It was “take what you can haul out”
We went for the sheer thrill of it. 
The group met early in the morning at the old ghost town of Eureka, Utah, where we wandered around until all arrived.
Notice that all ages were up bright and early 
The cars and trucks went on a convoy to the awaited destination.
A photo of the old mill and the original glory hole
there were old prospectors who brought their whole set up down 
And then there were us, the clueless. OK, I had actually done a little research online beforehand on what we might find there, but the reality was, at first sight it just looked like a whole lot of rock. So we listened and watched other more knowledgeable rock hounders and had a nice day learning about geology.
we ate our sandwiches and drank a lot of water
some found shade behind a truck
it was a long hot day in the desert mountainside
after we had finished up looking for treasures some headed up
to the owner (Spenst Hansen)’s home, where we visited outside a minute
~ such a treat, this day~
up here are still the old tracks from bygone years
the owner allowed us to walk up above to see the old mill and look down on the valley
The grandson found he loves rockhounding…a lot!
If you look above the green rooftop on the left, you can see where we rockhounded, or at least the white of the cars and a little white house in the area.
The mill was a fun old building to walk around in,
I am so glad we hung around to see this place.
We left with our treasures of fool’s gold and quartz 
we had a table full of green malachite in the raw
and our grandson had made new friends
This was a winning adventure all the way around!
Safety in the Fall 