I was surprised to see gold peek it’s head up above $600 again so soon. Who can say where it will go and when….

Gold Spot Price

Well everyone, as the title says, “Ramblins of the 29 Prospector”, tonite is one of those side trips that we take ever so offten and this one is getting me to go on vacation. You see I’m not affraid of going anywhere just so long as I don’t have to fly(9-11 really enforced that in me). So my wife has slowly worked on me til I said I’ll think about it. Well she said don’t think to long cause the tickets have been bought. We were going to go see the grandkids, period! Now I’m easy going and said ok lets do it. The Friday nite before we left they had a summer car show and street gathering in 29 Palms. So I got 2 pictures of the cars/rods:

We left on Tues morning and all was going well til we started to leave the terminal when we heard a big thump and the plane came to a stop. Well it seems that they ran over a bagger car and damaged the wing. So we unload, rescheduled our flight and waited and waited. Well at last we are airborne and on our way to Virginia.
Our daughter’s house is outside of Lynchburg in a place called Forest. Man is it beatiful. This old desert rat hat not seen so much green. The view I took was from her back patio off the kitchen. Don’t ask which way it was, I was turned around the whole time there.

We took our grandkids fishing

My youngest daughter and grandson took grandpa to the home of Southern Steel, better known as Milwaukee Iron (steel made in America). They knew that this side trip was needed.

And after the trip to the cycle shop we went to a little park that was not crowded and was very peacefull. Gave the prospector some time to reflect and drift away for a few moments.

All I can say about the whole thing………… It was just to short. We needed at least 2 more weeks. Ah, but at last, there is always next year. Thanks for letting me rant.

The 29 Prospector

I got out early in the a.m. with Rod yesterday on a hunt in the Little San Domingo placer. Figuring it was going to get hot quick, we were gearing up well before the sun rose in an area where Rod had found an 18.5 grammer previously. By the time we were ready, it was starting to get light and we found a small drainage that looked really good for nuggets with lots of exposed bedrock.

Well, right off the bat the threshold on my detector started to pulse and sure enough, it was indicating a low battery. Darn! I could have swore I had at least half a day left on that battery and I knew I had not brought another. Since I run a Coiltek 12 volt regulator on my SD2100 I searched Rod’s truck for an extra 12v but to no avail.

Here is Rod detecting on my trip back to the trucks…

Locating a small target on bedrock….

Coming up with no battery, I decided to to some vac packing. Luckily, we had planned to do this anyhow or I would have been totally out of commission. I went to a couple of likely spots and broke some bedrock and sucked up the virgin material.

The bedrock in the LSD is a really strange, pinkish basaltic flow that is unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere. It tends to be rotten and easy to break up and expose virgin material deep within. Like a lot of desert gold, it tends to be dispersed in pockets and so can be sort of hard to find, even though it’s basically everywhere.

Getting back to the trucks to process my first bucket of material, I decided to set up my Goldbuddy mini highbanker. I like bringing the Goldbuddy into the desert because it can run on a minimal amount of water and is a very relaxing way to process material. Well, I got the machine set up only to find I had forgot my power leads and was unable to hook the unit up to my battery. I just sort of shook my head at this point and did the only thing I could do which was to start panning. Honestly, I was probably able to process my two buckets of material faster this way. I think the sluice works best when you have a whole lot of material to work. With two buckets, the cleanup would take all the advantage out of using it.

I followed Rod to explore a different drainage which turned out to amount to nothing as far as detectable ground and I started to feel really nauseous and had to sit down for a bit. It never quite left me and so we decided to pack it up and get out as it was starting to get pretty hot anyhow. I thought I’d drank too much coffee for an empty stomach but in the end, I had a little case of the flu. Mild but I’m glad we got out when we did. You can’t afford to take chances with your health out in the desert.

In the end, this is what I came up with for the two 1/3 buckets….

Looking forward to next weeks hunt.

Well, my good friend and hunting partner Laszlo just returned from an awesome trip to Moore Creek Alaska!

Laszlo was telling me what an amazing area this is and how many of the creeks in this district have been and are producing placer gold. Moore creek is owned by Moore Creek Mining LLC which has entered into an agreement with Full Metal Minerals LLC(read press release) which also has a project on nearby Ganes creek(Innoko District). Moore creek is located in the McGrath District between Ganes Creek and Donlin Creek in the nearby Aniak district which is being worked by Barrick/Novagold.

Three adjacent creeks producing commercial placer in 2006. Wow. Laszlo said that the geologists on site were saying that there were other creeks in the surrounding areas that have massive quantities of placer. A quick look at the history of the area does show that placer gold was discovered and mined in many creeks during the 1900’s and 1910’s such as Candle Creek, Forth of July Creek, Alder Creek, Yankee Creek, Little Creek, Julian Creek and the list goes on. Moore creek itself was discovered in 1910.

Keep in mind that all this is in the deep interior of Alaska. There are few or no roads. Laszlo and the other prospectors travelled to Moore creek via bush plane.

This year the first week hunters enjoyed cooler temps, fewer bugs and almost no bears(one from the plane), all in beautiful, remote Alaska. What more could you ask for? Well, big gold, that’s what. In case you don’t frequent the forums, Moore creek is known for big specimen gold and nuggetshooters can pay for a weeks stay at the mine, lodging and food included. (visit Moore Creek) Although there are no guarantees of course, many hunters have found large pieces. Last year a gentleman recovered a 2 pounder! (24.79 toz)

This year is no exception. Some have gotten skunked, some have come back with a few and some have scored big. Laszlo scored a .24 toz specimen with his detector and about a pennyweight of fines in the highbanker. Rob Allison’s partner Glenn can back with the lions share of 12+ ounces of specimen gold, just over a troy pound.

I have to admit, I’ve thought about Moore Creek in passing but never really thought seriously about going. Somehow, seeing Laszlo go sort of tuned me into what it would be like to be in such an amazing historic placer mining area and to nuggetshoot for gold for a week. Man, what a trip that would be.

Maybe next year???