After the silver was extracted from the mountain, it needed to be further refined. The process for doing so is called smelting. This is the old smelt at Real de Catorce, long since out of service and now a tourist destination.

Tourists are given a tour of the smelt, but first they have to get over the mountain to the smelt. The tour operators use old Jeeps as tour buses to transport the visitors over the old mountain road. Tourists can either ride in the vehicle or, for those with sufficient bravery, on top.