37.8117° N 107.6645° W · Silverton, Colorado
For decades Maisel Excavation has cut roads, set foundations, opened mining claims and installed septic systems where the grade is steep, the season is short and the ground is rock. If a machine can reach it, we can build it.
Work that holds.
Sec. 01 — What we do
Heavy earthwork in the San Juans is unforgiving. We keep our focus narrow and our standards high — the work that holds up through forty winters at altitude.
This is mining country, and we know it the way only locals can. Access roads to remote claims, level drill and equipment pads, portals and dumps, and reclamation when the work is done. Steep, rocky, off-grid ground is where we're most at home.
A building is only as good as the ground it sits on. We dig, over-excavate and prep foundations on the slopes and frost-prone soils that scare off flatland contractors — cut-and-fill, retaining, structural backfill and proper drainage, squared up for the concrete crew.
From a single switchbacked driveway to miles of mountain road, we lay out grade, cut bench, set culverts, armor the ditches and build a base that drains and survives spring runoff. We've built road for power plants, railroads and private claims.
At this elevation a septic system has to be engineered for short seasons, hard freezes and tight, rocky leach fields. We excavate and install tanks, drain fields and the whole system to spec — sited, bedded and backfilled so it works the first winter and every one after.
Sec. 02 — Why it matters
Silverton sits above 9,300 feet at the heart of the San Juan Mountains, where men have been cutting road and chasing ore since 1875. Up here the building season is measured in weeks, the soil is glacial rock and tailings, slopes run past forty degrees, and the weather can turn a worksite to mud or snow in an afternoon.
Maisel Excavation was built for exactly this ground. We've cleared track for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad at Milepost 486, moved compressors for mining operations, and worked sites like the Pride of the West Mill and the rail-only corridor to the historic Tacoma power plant — places most equipment can't even reach. Local knowledge isn't a slogan here. It's the difference between a job that holds and a job that washes out.
See the work
Fig. 02 · Pride of the West Mill · Howardsville
Sec. 03 — On the ground
Every photo below is a Maisel job in the San Juan high country — no stock images.
Fig. 04 · New road, graded & prepped
Sec. 04 — The outfit
Maisel Excavation is a Silverton company through and through. When you call, you talk to Pete — not a call center, not a salesman three states away. He bids the job, he runs the iron, and he stands behind the result. That's how business is done in a town this size, and it's why the railroads, the mills and the property owners of San Juan County keep calling back.
37.8117° N · 107.6645° W · 9,318 FT
Mining claim, foundation, road or septic — if you can get a machine near it, Maisel can build it.
