Well,
ive been up in the tumbler ridge area for a few days now. ive stayed in camp for 2 nights so far, and its been a blast up here. the one thing that i feel like im mostly doing is driving. you drive a lot. its about 3h from Fort st john to here (thats where we fly into). from the mine site to tumbler its about an hour and a half. so a lot of back and forth with the car. the good thing is my company has a suburban that i drive when i come up. and its all decked out with all the options. so thats pretty nice.
so, the first day i drove out to the Brule Mine site. i met up with a bunch of people here, got a mine tour, and figured out what i would do from thursday till sunday ish. i decided that i would stay in camp, to cut down on the driving, and so i could get more done.
That night though i was going to meet with some people to play bocce and hang out. so i left, and ended up in tumbler around 6 in the evening. i met up with a co worker, grabbed some dinner, and then headed over to meet one of our geologists. she was the one arranging the bocce. anyways, bocce fell out, someone couldnt make it, so we decided to go for a drive up to our Hermann Mine property. it has not been developed yet, but its really nice up there. on the way you pass the old Quintette mine, which is pretty amazing sight in itself. its the first mine that really established tumbler ridge for what it is.
so up we went, its a little south of tumbler ridge, about 30 to 40 min of driving. the really nice road up there was closed, still snowed in, so we had to take a different road, which ended us up at a gas well at the top of the mountain. some really nice views of the rocky foothills up there. we got to see a mother bear and her baby when we were heading back to town, but, as all the bears so far that i have seen do, they ran away before i could get my camera out.
the next day i woke up bright and early and headed for our brule mine site. i got here no problem, and started hanging out with the surveyor to see how things work, and to learn how to survey. well, he put me on a road, stuck a backpack on my back, and said, walk down this, and hit enter on this unit.
that done, i realize, its pretty easy. walk around, and make sure that your within your error limits, and go to town, taking as many points as you want. so, that day, i did some surveying of coal seams, and some benches, mostly under supervision. lots of running around that day, since we had to get a new blast set up for the drill to drill, and well, later in the afternoon, the survey stuff wouldnt work in the new area of the pit. so we had to use a tape measure, and set up a blast pattern. Fun stuff.
anyways, we had planned to go to Bennett dam at the end of the day, and thats what we did. we ate dinner, and jumped into the suburban, and off we went. it was about a 2 hour drive from the mine, maybe a little bit more. but we got there, and boy, the Bennett damn is pretty impressive. we were most amazed that we were actually allowed to drive out onto the dam and right across. on the other side there was a cool lookout that lets you see the whole valley and the outlet station for the water. i was pretty impresses. especially since its an earthen dam.
after that, we booked it on home, got some picture of deer, almost hit a little bear that decided he wanted to make his life more interesting by sprinting across a road in front of an SUV going 120km/h. the little guy made it though. got home about 10:30, took a shower, and passed out.
So friday was an interesting day. we started it off by seeing how the drill was doing on the blast that we had set up. he was chugging along, and we gave him another twenty holes to drill. after that, i needed to survey the 2 coal stockpiles that we have on site, and so, i went about doing that. ohh boy. you get dirty walking around on piles of coal. and these piles aren’t very small either. but anyways, i got those done, and then we had an early lunch, packed up our gear into the truck, and off we went on the hour and a half drive to our Rail load out, which is right next to tumbler ridge, in order to survey a stockpile that is there also.
that pretty well rounded off that day, and had another great dinner. god i love being in camps. all the food you want, and you dont have to cook or clean up, and its good food. after dinner, i washed up, and went to read in bed some. well, i pretty much slept from 7pm until 6:30 the next morning.
so, i felt pretty rested this morning. thats good, cause i had a pretty big task ahead of me. i wanted to survey the entire mined out face in one of the pits, and then get the reclaimed waste dump which is right next to it.
it took me pretty well most of the morning to get the mined out coal face done. but it was great, nice sunny day, good breeze, and lots and lots of walking. on an uneven surface also. its pretty slow going. then it was lunch, and after lunch i headed up onto the reclaimed dump. i got that surveyed, and decided to do the dump and road below it also, so, got that done too.
and that pretty much takes me up to now. so here i am, posting, exhausted from the days work and waiting until dinner time. its steak night. all you can eat steak. hmmmm.
im back in tumbler sun night, and then heading out on mon.
till then.
full flickr album here
