Bill Gydesen
A profile of Bill Gydesen, a Gunnison-area consulting client and friend John met through geologist Steve Zahony in 1979 — a self-taught mine owner with, John swears, the proverbial nine lives of a cat, who kept working a bulldozer on a broken ankle, survived a burst aortic aneurysm and years of other close calls, and was still talking about next year's prospecting trip.
I first worked with a Denver consulting geologist, Steve Zahony, in 1979 on a project near Crested Butte. Through this association I became acquainted with Bill Gydesen who was preparing a gold mine for production near Gunnison, Colorado. We became fast friends and Bill employed me as consultant in various phases of his operations with the understanding that 90% of the time I didn't know what in hell I was doing or talking about but I would fake it to the best of my ability.
When is your time up? That is a question one should ask Bill Gydesen because he seems possessed of the proverbial nine lives of a cat. I have met no other person who has tempted fate as often or as successfully as Bill. He is not one to sit idle. A master electrician was his main occupation when he came to the Gunnison country from Michigan, he started work in maintenance at Western State College and in off time began reading histories of mines and mining in the area. He became so enthused with the possibilities of some abandoned gold mines, he began acquiring ownership to their patents and he was off. Bill and his son, Bob, also formed a construction and excavating company which gave them the tools to start mining. On one excavation job, Bill ran a bulldozer with a fractured ankle until the pain became so fierce he decided the ankle was more than sprained. A doctor's exam and X-ray revealed the broken bone, which by this time had partially healed. He was advised that it should be re-fractured and aligned in a cast. Bill told the doctor, "aw hell, I thought it was something serious," and he returned to his bulldozer.
Bill developed emphysema and diabetes over the years we have been acquainted and a few years ago he had an aneurism on a main artery that burst and flooded his abdomen with blood. He was given 22 pints of blood, about as much as my entire body holds, to replenish his supply before the aorta was repaired and his belly was reinforced with a mesh shield to hold him together after the operation. He has had oxygen ignite and flash up his nostrils triggered by his love of cigarettes and he was knocked unconscious by the handle of a handyman jack, far back in the boondocks on a prospecting trip, when his truck became stuck.
I recently visited Bill, in Gunnison, where he was being nursed by his able wife, Betty, his abdomen swathed in bandages from another operation where his entrails had to be re-arranged and another mesh shield emplaced after the first one disintegrated causing a massive infection. Betty was metering antibiotic through a tube that ran up his left arm, internally, past the shoulder and into the body cavity. Bill is 74 years of age, a Korean war veteran and has probably moved more rock and dirt than any other individual. The gold gleam has returned to his eyes and next year we are going prospecting.