https://www.google.com/maps/@31.1064207,-112....authuser=0
This link will take you to Google Maps Street View of Mexico Highway 2 at Mile Post 157 - actually Kilometer Post. This is interactive and you can pan and zoom using mouse and mouse buttons. Hold left button down and move the mouse left/right up/down to pan the view and the scroll wheel will zoom in and out.
There's more - you can "drive" along Hiway 2. Pan till you're headed south down the highway and look for an arrow in a white circle. Click the left mouse button once and you'll move in the direction of the arrow. Move forward just one or two clicks and then pan right and you'll be looking west and should see the red gate that's mentioned frequently. That's the entrance to the Santa Elena mine road. The mine site - leach pad and ponds - is up the hill about a mile and a half. You can't navigate the image up the dirt road but if you are in the right place you can see a faint white scar on the mountain - that's the southernmost visible portion of the Julio Vein. The blasted area is on flatter ground to the north of the "scar".
Go on south on Highway 2 and you'll get a feel for the road. It's a good two-lane road with paved shoulders so the protocol is if you want to pass and there is approaching traffic the trucks in the travel lanes will drift over to ride partly on their respective shoulders creating a middle lane where the Google Cam Car safely passes even with opposing traffic. Needless to say, there are some spectacular wrecks using this system when someone doesn't play by the unstated rules.
Not far south of our entrance, you'll encounter a green sign that says NOCHE BUENA with an arrow pointing west and the notation 30 km. That is the Highway 2 entrance to Noche Buena and again a gate and dirt road that leads across the desert terrain to their mine site. I believe there is another entrance to their mine from the west but our gates are about 1/4 mile apart on Highway 2.
Keep clicking in a southerly direction on highway 2 enough times and you'll get to Caborca but that'd take a lot of clicking. Do a 180 and head north to Soyonta - the border town south of Lukeville AZ. A pretty dangerous stretch of road - isolated, long way from both Caborca and Soyonta - scene of drug gang violence and two days ago an attempt to stop a truck to steal the cargo. That one was foiled when the truck driver kept driving even with his trailer tires shot out and the trailer on fire. Nobody got that cargo - it burned up and the would-be thieves got away in two pickups.
I visited the mine site along with two others in March 2015 so have been each way on Highway 2 from Lukeville to Caborca. No problems but I'd only do the trip in daylight with no stops - there's nothing to stop for anyway.
This link will take you to Google Maps Street View of Mexico Highway 2 at Mile Post 157 - actually Kilometer Post. This is interactive and you can pan and zoom using mouse and mouse buttons. Hold left button down and move the mouse left/right up/down to pan the view and the scroll wheel will zoom in and out.
There's more - you can "drive" along Hiway 2. Pan till you're headed south down the highway and look for an arrow in a white circle. Click the left mouse button once and you'll move in the direction of the arrow. Move forward just one or two clicks and then pan right and you'll be looking west and should see the red gate that's mentioned frequently. That's the entrance to the Santa Elena mine road. The mine site - leach pad and ponds - is up the hill about a mile and a half. You can't navigate the image up the dirt road but if you are in the right place you can see a faint white scar on the mountain - that's the southernmost visible portion of the Julio Vein. The blasted area is on flatter ground to the north of the "scar".
Go on south on Highway 2 and you'll get a feel for the road. It's a good two-lane road with paved shoulders so the protocol is if you want to pass and there is approaching traffic the trucks in the travel lanes will drift over to ride partly on their respective shoulders creating a middle lane where the Google Cam Car safely passes even with opposing traffic. Needless to say, there are some spectacular wrecks using this system when someone doesn't play by the unstated rules.
Not far south of our entrance, you'll encounter a green sign that says NOCHE BUENA with an arrow pointing west and the notation 30 km. That is the Highway 2 entrance to Noche Buena and again a gate and dirt road that leads across the desert terrain to their mine site. I believe there is another entrance to their mine from the west but our gates are about 1/4 mile apart on Highway 2.
Keep clicking in a southerly direction on highway 2 enough times and you'll get to Caborca but that'd take a lot of clicking. Do a 180 and head north to Soyonta - the border town south of Lukeville AZ. A pretty dangerous stretch of road - isolated, long way from both Caborca and Soyonta - scene of drug gang violence and two days ago an attempt to stop a truck to steal the cargo. That one was foiled when the truck driver kept driving even with his trailer tires shot out and the trailer on fire. Nobody got that cargo - it burned up and the would-be thieves got away in two pickups.
I visited the mine site along with two others in March 2015 so have been each way on Highway 2 from Lukeville to Caborca. No problems but I'd only do the trip in daylight with no stops - there's nothing to stop for anyway.
