This may be an ignorant question but if the ground is too frozen/hard to drill assays during the winter months, why isn't it too frozen/hard to operate an open-pit mine in during the same time period?

Doesnt have anything to due with frozen ground...has everything to do with moving the drilling in crappy conditions and then setting it up for another hole in the ground...its much harder than many people think. Rock is ROCK and temperature doesnt come into play. Like Oil and Gas in Alberta, we have the opposite problem in many areas - have to drill in the winter when the ground is hard enough to support the heavy equipment, but in warm weather you have to drill from pad's in the same area due to muskeg.

911