A few things I should have added above, but I didn't then want the message to be too long. Being that things are slow here now, perhaps this is a good time to continue along these lines.

One of the new exploration shafts into the massive and newly discovered deposit far below the old mines ar Superior is almost on top of Apache Leap, and it is visible from Hwy 60 (at Oak Flat, if you want to check your maps). So, visible mining activity is not something new to this area. There are at least two large head frames there, several other structures, and acres of engineered fill - a distant relative was one of the contractors there.

I have not been on that pad, but I have hiked around it several times, and have very often driven by as I have inlaws living in Globe, the next mining town to the east.

As far as I know, there have not been plans to dump mine waste at Apache Leap, and the last I heard, the initial mine portal was to be at Pinto Valley, some dozen miles northeast of Superior and Apache Leap - remember here that the deposit is over a mile deep. For map checkers, Pinto Valley is off of Hwy 60, just below the tiny community of Top of the World. Even if the initial portal is not built at Pinto Valley, there are plenty of options for taking such a massive project well away from Apache Leap, where the topography doesn't lend itself to such activity anyway.

Getting back to the objections about closing public access to the area, Resolution was concerned about how underground blasting might desabilize escarments and balanced rocks, and rightly so, as this is a highly popular rock climbing and hiker "bush whacking" area. The solution, as I understand it from a couple of years ago, is to close the area only in conjuction with scheduled blasting activity. Recall once more that blasting will be far underground so the only risks are associated with ground shaking at the surface.

For those who may be interest in "The Legened of Apache Leap", embraced as truth by some of the Apache, here is a summary.

Somewhere in the Apache Leap area, the Indians were thought to have a hidden camp from which they could watch the movement of troops in and out of Camp Pinal at what became known by the soldiers as Camp Picket Post (that's another story). Supposedly, the Army discovered the camp which they thought to be distruptive of their activies in the area. Without warning, they decended on the camp killing about 50 and driving another 25 over an adjacent cliff. There are various versions of this story of course, because nothing was recorded about it. As far as I know, the first printed account, if you want to call it an account, appeared in Arizona Highways magazine in the 1920's, around 50+ years following the supposed incident.

However, there are no records that such an incident ever took place. In fact, the Army recorded everything they did, and "scouts", as they called search and destroy missions, were maticulously collected and forwared. They exist today in US governement archives - I've read some of these reports from Ft. McDowell, and Ft. Reno.

That such records were important for demonstrating to Congress and settlers that the Army was doing it's job, and that no such records exist regarding an event at Apache Leap, I have to believe that the incident did not happen, thought something like it could have taken place elsewhere in the Pinal Mountains. BUT, the Apache lived and traveled in small bands, so the killing of 75 persons by the Army, and with no survivors (and no records), would have been so very highly unusual as to never have happened at all.

Here's a great set of pictures of the Apache Leap area for those who may be interested, though this whole post is largely off topic.

http://www.azhikers.org/reports/q_2007/ApacheLeap02.html

Picket Post Mountain is featured in two of the above photos. I've been up there too.

VP