MONTANA – CONESTOGA CAMPGROUND and TINTINA COPPER

We parked for a week at the Coast To Coast  Conestoga Campground at White Sulphur Springs, MT . We arrived on the Sunday of  Labor Day weekend (Sept. 4). The park was quite full, but many moved out by Tuesday. It rained  most of the day driving there, as well as the next day and part of Tues.  The winter storm warning told of snow down to 6000 ft. so when the clouds lifted we had some nice views from the park (3800 ft. elevation).

 

 

The 49 site  campground is on the edge of the small town – two gas stations, one supermarket, a few cafes, a few motels, etc.- population 939 in 2010.

The park’s sites are mainly pull  through with full hookups and excellent wifi, but a bit tight.

 

 

I set up all window awnings to give us a little protection from more rain. We often had winds of up to 25 mph. One low temp was in the mid 30s with several on the low 40s. I am glad that the electric blanket still worked.

 

 

View of the low Castle Mountains east of town after the storm.

 

 

And west of the RV park we were treated to snowy views of Mount Baldy, elevation 9472 , part of the Belt Mountains.  We drove around the south end of the Belt Mountains through Deep Creek Canyon on our day trip to Townsend.

 

 

Returning from our day trip to Bozeman, we were treated to this view of vergas – instances of rain falling but evaporating before hitting the ground.

 

 

When I explored the tiny town, I ran across the local office of Tintina Montana. It is developing an underground copper mine at Black Butte, about 20 miles north of town. Three copper ore bodies have been identified by drilling. The lower ore body  shown above, 1500 ft. under the surface, averages 6.4 % copper while the upper averages 2.8 % copper. Copper mines in Arizona can operate profitably on 1/2 of 1% copper ore, so these deposits are unique.  Engineers have planned on how to mine the deposits as shown above, and permits now are being sought to mine these two bodies.  Overburden and mine waste will be put back in the mined out areas of the mine.  They hope to begin mining in 2018 and expect to mine out these two ore bodies in about 20 years.  They did not give out any information on the third ore body. 

You may wonder about my interest in mining. During my first few years of practicing law, I sometimes helped the senior partner of the firm  with his mining law cases.