Al's Photo Collection of the Opening of the Phoenix. Al donated some of his land and reconstructed the mine buildings, in order for the county to widen the road. It made it a much easier trek up Trail Creek. The Picture to right shows how the Phoenix and Trail Creek Road looked before the road was widened.

Before opening the old workings of the Phoenix Gold Mine, they needed to come in on fresh rock to find out whether or not there was too much bad ground to open the old 1930's workings. So, 50 feet west from where Al's son David found the surface of the Phoenix vein they started on the Resurrection vein, which Al Mosch's mother, Betty Mosch, using a divining rod, had also located inside the mine.  The Resurrection vein can be seen in the Shaker Table room and Ball Mill room. It has turned bright blue and green from the copper oxidizing in these veins. But there is still plenty of gold to be seen too!

The photo above shows the Resurrection vein as shown today. The photo to the right shows the processes of  mining on the Resurrection vein in the Phoenix Gold Mine.

 

The Photos remaining on this page are from Al's collection of the "Re-Opening of the Original Phoenix Mine and the many levels it contains.
	As you can see it was no easy job to bring the Phoenix back to life!

 
 

Al with the help of his family and many, many volunteers reopened the Phoenix, exposing a very high grade vein, (which you will see on the tour). Along with the Phoenix vein, the Resurrection vein was also discovered. The Phoenix gold ore is left in place until gold prices go up enough to pay to remove the gold. The small miner has it as rough as ever when it comes to processing their ore. Unless you can afford to build your own mill and assay office, the closest one to Colorado is in Montana.