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I had an extremely interesting visit to the ghost town of Vanderbilt this weekend. I was with Ted Weasma, a geologist and cave specialist with the Mojave National Preserve. By law, the old mine adits and shafts have to be made safe (for people and wildlife, such as bats). This could have meant bulldozing them in, thus destroying their history and the scenic nature of the ghost town. This could also have meant surrounding them with ugly barbed-wire barricades, preventing anyone from getting a closer look at them, and also destroying their scenic nature.
Ted, however, is ensuring that the adits and shafts are not only made safe, but also that their scenic nature is preserved, and in some cases, enhanced. And, this isn't easy or cheap work, either. Ted, and those working for him, are custom-building metal grates. Those that block off adits are placed inside, so you can't even see them from the outside. In one case, while some folks suggested placing the grate near the very front of the adit, Ted had the grate placed further back, so that folks could still walk in and see some interesting, hand-wrought metalwork bracing in the roof timbers. He wanted folks to retain access to the history as much as possible.
As for the shafts, the grating across the top doesn't look all that bad, and it has one extremely wonderful feature. You can climb on it! You can actually walk out across the shafts, and look straight down into them. No more inching gingerly up to their crumbling edges. Now, you can get up close and personal, and see the ladders, the wood bracing, the pipes, everything. This is an improvement from the original, in my book. There's one shaft in particular that was so filled with debris, it was almost invisible. Now, you can walk right out across this amazing, deep maw, and imagine the miners who dug it. And, even here, efforts are being made to preserve the original materials as much as possible. For example, when wooden ladders stick up out of the shaft, the metal grating is worked AROUND the ladders, so they don't have to be removed
I'm explaining all of this because I know how easily we all grumble about the Park Service, and other government agencies, thinking that much of what they do is to restrict access, prohibit activities, and sometimes even destroy what we might consider important historical artifacts or places. Ted shows that this aint necessarily so! Protection doesn't have to mean destroying access. And, I know Ted's not the only one. I personally know some other folks working for the Mojave Preserve who are wonderful, passionate, real people.
I'm also explaining this because, if you've been out to Vanderbilt in the past, and if you go out now, you'll notice that one of the head frames is gone. If I had visited there alone this weekend, I might have raged at the Park Service, assuming that they took it down. They didn't. It fell down. Ted was just as sad as me about that. Sooo....in all the grumbling we do, and yes, it can be justified, let's remember that "The Park Service", and in fact, all of "The Government", really is made up of individual people, and some of them are excellent.
One more bit, specifically for those who have been out there before. I asked Ted about those big caverns across the road from Vanderbilt, up the hill in the whitish rock. The ones big enough to drive a semi into, which we thought might be turquoise mines. In fact, they were for high-quality limestone.
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