My Momma lived in Ajo from 1937 to 1950 with her family of nine! Thompson Street was named after my maternal great grandparents!! My grandfather, his brothers and many family members worked in the mine. Grandpa was an electrician along with one of his younger brothers with the next to the youngest being a train engineer. Love this video!! When I was a teenager the train was still running between Ajo and Buckeye and we got to ride in the dinky!!!
My dad worked as a large equipment mechanic at the mine in the early 50's. At night he would take us to watch the dumping of the tailings which were on fire. For a young child it was an awesome site.
Not to belabor the point, but when we started strip mining, we didn't know the long-term ramifications. The best we can do is learn from our mistakes and move forward-and now I'm off my soapbox. Thanks for another amazing trip around Arizona!
Don’t feel bad about being in awe of the pit! It’s surprising that we tiny humans can do things on this gigantic scale. Totally agree that we should consider unique, collaborative alternatives that don’t destroy our home. Congrats on almost 30k followers!! Well deserved!
We are new subscriber to your channel and find these broadcast not only informational but also very educational, I will be telling my friends and family to subscribe to your channel. PS My husband is a schoolteacher, and said he's learned quite a bit about the history of Arizona. Also we travel Arizona quite a bit. Keep up the good work!😀
Thx for the video... yep ......our consumables are either grown or mined,.....when we are done mining on this planet.....lets move to the next one......our survival depends on it 😁
I was born in Ajo and went to grade school and middle school there. I moved when mine shut down while i was in highschool. I miss living there. Its beautiful. The smell of ajp is creosote bush.
What a nice and picturesque little town. Like all the views, especially the railway station!! Thanks for the invite. Hi Amy. Thanks to you guys because I get to see other places and experience adventure s. Take care n on to the next one.
Nice video. I visited Ajo during their March festival a few years ago and loved the town. Friendly residents. One of the few places I was genuinely sad to leave. Hope to get back there again soon.
I enjoyed this video, as well as your previous ones! Ajo looks like it’s such an interesting and lovely little community to explore. And the desert terrain in the area is so beautiful, as always! I know you must get frizzled when you're on the road a lot! We do appreciate you and your efforts to make these great videos, though, if it ever feels like “why am I doing this?” 😀 Thank you!
Excellent! Brings back memories. Been all over Az., lived 50 years there. The desert was my teacher. Thank you for sharing . Love it. Great music also.
Grew up here in the 80s and the Spanish interpretation is how I've always heard the nomenclature origin story. It was the word for the unique color of the local hills due to the mineral composition, to my understanding. Not the pigment per sé, but close enough.
I enjoyed your Ajo, AZ area tour. The town of Ajo isn't at all what I expected. It is a pretty place, with everything neat and clean, and with streets cleverly laid out. Your comment about the 1970's copper miners' strike got me to wondering. In about 1970 I saw the Bisbee pit mine in operation, and still recall that the truck loads of ore coming out of the gigantic pit looked like sugar ants in comparison to the pit width! But I now wonder if that strike shut down all of these mines to this day?
Let me know if you get a solid answer about your drone flight question. From what I read in studying for my TRUST certificate you are allowed to fly from outside the park. One NPS official even stated they can't really enforce anything that takes place outside the park. State trust land should be differentiated from a national park because they are completely separate land use rules and regulations. It wouldn't make sense if you had to follow NPS rules on state trust land that it wouldn't just be incorporated into the park. You never know with government though. You still couldn't fly over the park but you might be able to get some cool shots from higher up. You're the reason I ended up with a drone, thanks for that LOL. I love your videos and enjoy following along on your journeys.
Have yet to get a solid answer, but hat's kind of our thinking too. However, given that we put content out on the internet, we try to play things safer. 😅
@@CactusAtlas I emailed Organ Pipe off the webpage and received a Response from the Senior Law Enforcement Officer at the monument. He stated the Trust land within the boundaries is considered within the larger boundary of the monument, thus ruling out the possibility of UAS operations. He did say you can fly from the BLM land to the north but that you wouldn't be able to make it to the Bates Well area and remain withing the FAA Line of sight requirement as it is 2 miles or so from the boundary
😲😲😲 You are awesome! We kinda had a gut feeling that it being surrounded by park operations that drones would be a no-go. Good to have confirmation. Appreciate your work and sharing! You rock!
Really enjoyed your video, well done ! So i wont miss any I subscribed to your channel and you have enough back logged to keep me busy for a some time !
I agree. I have a similar love/hate appreciation for mines. I don’t like them but don’t know what else can be done. I think there’s a lot in life, our society, and our planet that just have a lot of that gray area of good/bad and what the heck do you do.
100%. Our needs for the resources in our ground have changed as populations increase and technology advances. The game plan likely has to keep changing. 😑 It's hard to know what the answer is.
@@CactusAtlas Yeah KITT PEAK and I guess they still have night tours and let you see through one of the 20 telescopes. 8,000 ft. I live 16 miles east off of Ajo Way.
Everything.....EVERYTHING comes from mining and farming, period! So if anyone wants to complain about an open pit mine or whatever, just tell them to give up their car, phone, food and the clothes on their back...
The fact is very simple, most of the mining operations are owned/controlled by a handful of people. When labour strikes in one region, they close the mine and increase production in another location. I've lived in Arizona for 60 years, this is a regular tactic. The ore will be there, just shift the market from north to south America.....RF
That IS a hard rock mine. Pretty much any mining like that is considered a hard rock mining operation. I think what you meant was an underground mine. Copper is too spread out for underground usually, much more efficient to do an open pit because you are pulling a smaller percentage of ore out with more waste mixed in. Very rarely is it in high concentration veins like gold where you can follow them underground and get most of it out. The mine I work at moves almost 2,000,000 tons of material to get 3,087 tons of copper(refined) every year. Actually I don't know where those numbers came from, they were online but I know for a fact we move more than that lol. Our average per shift is over 80k tons, that's 160 per day and we run 365, no breaks. Over 58 million tons of material moved. I'm not sure what our copper production is for sure.
Here is a thought. Push the tailings back in the hole. Or since the land is trashed anyway, bury trash and cover with tailings. Eventually it might create compost??? Of course the cost factor is the prohibitor, I would add that it would still be better than dumping trash in our oceans.
Spectacular as always Next time u go to West Texas near Marfa Check out Pinto Canyon Road You take a paved Ranch road south for several miles Then off road for maybe about 15 miles to Ruidosa along the Rio Grande
Well, dang! I'm guessing the water must fluctuate quite a bit. It's quite an experience to walk through when dry but knowing it's not supposed to be that way... 😔
Long time tucson resident and avid hunter and off reader. I've been away several decades now, snd I'm not a lawyer, but I recall state trust land is not private but often leased. ranchers, etc. the land must be accessible and usable to the public, following hunting regs, etc. very similar to BLM, but is not leased.
In my experience, I've never had any trouble with authorities on AZ State Trust Land. Never even been asked for my permit. I just Mountain Bike though.
Me neither really. My concern is not so much running into anyone in the field, but when it comes to drone rules, since I have a commercial license, I need to be careful where I fly as there are those who delight in busting people on RU-vid.
I fly a drone as a hobby and use an app called Air Aware which helps me know where I can fly. It doesn’t include city ordinances so it’s not perfect but it is a good starting point for me to know if I might be able to fly. I looked at the area I think that you were in for the trust land and it looks like based on the app, that the national park designation supersedes the trust and you can’t fly there. You might want to still check with the park though because it is confusing for sure.
Do you have the B4UFLY app from the FAA on your phone? It uses your GPS location and will let you know if drone flying is permitted in the area. Additionally, if there is a temporary restriction (such as if Air Force One is in the area), it will alert you to those conditions.
I have to ask you where are you from, what is your accent? It’s driving me crazy that I can’t figure it out or maybe it’s just your style of speaking, and your intonation
Ajo an amazing name, with various "meanings". The way I understood what it meant was by an old Mexican. Seems before mining and all that there, there was a house of I'll repute. So when the Spanish or Mexican needed a day of R/R, they'd go there and looking for an a ho 🤔 😂. Then it turned into a big ho in the ground.😊 It is a shame with how the earth was treated there and other places around the world. Now they make you fill them back up. Before anything starts you have to get a permit. Fly over and take pictures. Carefully remove all fauna, GPS where it came from, place in a "greenhouse " in the area, and replant after you fill back in. In the exact spot. It isn't cheap anymore to mine. So when people start complaining about a new mine going in, and how they're going to rape the earth and make gobs and gobs of money, I know they haven't done there research. This is why the Bible says we've become a covetous nation. We go there and rape their land. Anyway...peace.
If man went and mined space for the infinite supply of what we have to work so hard for here on earth, all the value of those resources on earth would lose their value, they'd be deemed worthless due to the infinite supply which would crash and collapse the trade and stock markets, companies and moguls would go broke over night and we all know they'll never let that happen
