Geting your miner/blacksmith out of the copper age

[Raziel]

^ Funny you should mention that place, because that's near where the skill veins I found were. I got a quest from Booty Bay that sent me up behind Hammerfall into a little cave, I think the ore is Rethban or something. Skilled like crazy there, over 200 and still gaining strongly. I think the special ore veins there were considered the equivalent of iron. I don't know if they'd have continued to skill me past 225, but I got a whole whack of skill running around collecting ore for the quest and killing kobolds for motes of Myzrael.