Fully appreciating the Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine requires some scale.

You can see the classic photo of a person being half the height of a tire on one of the mine’s haulers and know that’s a big truck. You can see a photo of that truck looking like a toy at the bottom of one of the pits and know that’s a big mine. But to really grasp the enormity of it, you need to stand next to the truck or on the brim of the pit and look for yourself.

And finally, visitors will once again get a chance to do just that.

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, CC&V is allowing public tours. Tours start from the Victor Lowell Thomas Museum (298 Victor Ave.). They are held Thursdays through Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. They will run through the end of October.

Reintroducing the tours was a priority for CC&V General Manager Lowe Billingsley when he took over this summer. He remembered when the tours were active prior to the pandemic and the number of tourists they brought to the area.

“We’ve always been very passionate about it,” he said. “We know from doing this before what it means for the businesses.”

Visitors start at the museum, where they will board a van and venture into a unique environment. The tour starts at the headframe of the famous Independence Mine that made Winfield Scott Stratton the district’s first millionaire.

From there, visitors will view vast mining pits, enormous machinery and the leach pad where they will learn the process of extracting the gold from the ore.

The tour then returns to the museum, which houses a good array of vintage mining equipment from the Gold Camp’s heyday. More machinery and implements can be seen at the nearby Victor Gold Camp Ag & Mining Museum.

“We expect thousands of tourists to visit and learn what modern mining is all about and hopefully stick around to learn a little bit more about historic mining,” Victor City Administrator Bobby Tech said.

The mine is one of the largest in the United States with a footprint of about 6 miles by 6 miles. On an average day, they will mine 120,000 tons of ore and rock from which they expect to extract about 378 ounces of gold.

“The economic impact that the mine has in the local area is about $650 million a year,” said Billingsley, a self-described geology nerd. “We have multi-generational employees, their fathers or grandfathers worked here.

“Hopefully, their kids might work here someday.”

With the return of the tours, the economic impact will grow.

“It brings people in to eat at our restaurants and look in our stores and see what Victor is all about,” Victor Lowell Thomas Museum volunteer Sue Kochevar said.

Kochevar said the previous tours started around 2000 and halted in 2020 with the onset of the pandemic. She said it previously brought in about 2,000 visitors a year.

The museum will also benefit.

“The proceeds are going 100% to the Victor Lowell Thomas Museum,” Kochevar said. “SSR is providing the vans and the drivers. They’re very supportive.”