But the cache room found by the sheepherders was the secret processing location, not at the mine itself. They had to concentrate the gold as much as possible to make it practical and profitable to carry it back to Taos or Santa Fe. No one wanted to carry unprocessed ore for long distances, especially to communities where it would draw the attention of the King's representatives. Who would tax it 20%. So smoke or not, it had to be done up in the high country.
I look for locations that had what the miners needed to do that in secret. Places where smoke would have to rise a long way to the top of ridge lines so it could dissipate before it could be seen from afar in the form of a defined plume. Places where there was grass for pack animals, and water, and game, and also trees for fuel. As well, Temple claimed to have found a charcoal pit in his search area. And while the production of the charcoal would create smoke, when the charcoal was used in the smelter, very little smoke would be produced, allowing it to be hidden IN the cache room itself while operating.
So if the cache really exists, I believe it contains a smelter just as the sheepherders claimed.
You have to climb inside of the heads of the people who were engaged in this stuff to try to get an idea of where to look. And one thing that the author of Ventana remarked about the likely location of the cache was that it was "in a place no one would ever want to go". That perfectly describes the extremely rough terrain of where I am looking.
