Just talked with one of the mine supervisors.... he confirmed:

- they are about 550 feet from the hinge zone ore now, and the shaft is progressing about 20 feet per day. Once they get there, then the development work will begin. Then, at least, they will be extracting devlopment ore in the process rather than waste rock.

- right now there is about 400 ton/day of ore being produced from the mine(s). The mill is still running 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, with ore being stcokpiled in the interim so that they can run the mill more efficiently when it is operating.

- as posted before, there are lots of experienced miners looking for work, with so many other mines slowing down or shutting down; they have a stack of resumes and they are bringing new guys in as needed; this is a big improvement as opposed to before when experienced miners were hard to find.

NL