The mine entrance looks like a cave in the side of the peak, and the main area is only about 18 foot by 6 foot. "It's pretty scary in there."īlank camps on the mountainside at night or sleeps inside the mine, where it's generally about 10 degrees cooler. "But you don't want to use the outhouse," Blank says with a wry smile. There's nothing outside except a small wooden, white tool shed and an outhouse. (The Blanks' baby girl, whom they named Amethyst Jewel, was born this past spring.) They would dig rocks out of the mountainside with picks and chisels for two to three weeks, accumulating layers of dirt under their fingernails and in the cracks on their hands. I'm pretty used to it." Until she got pregnant late last year, Blank's wife used to make the hike with him. ![]() Miner Mike Blank makes the hike once a month, a trek that mine owner Kurt Cavano describes as "calf-burning" but which Blank says "isn't so bad. ![]() Because of its high, remote location, the amethyst mine can be worked only by hand. There are only two ways to get there: by helicopter or a two-hour drive with an all-terrain vehicle to a place 5,000 feet up called "The Saddle," followed by a 41/2-mile, two-hour hike across all four peaks. ![]() Surrounded by the Tonto National Forest, this mine sits on the southernmost peak of Four Peaks in the rugged Mazatzal Mountains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet. Four Peaks Amethyst Mine holds the distinction of being both the last commercial amethyst mine in North America and one of the most inaccessible.
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