Well its been in the 60’s at nite and not heating up til 12:30 or so; so I figured it was starting to be mining time. I called Doc my partner at 6:30am and he hadn’t even finished his first cut of coffee. He decided that today was not a good day for him so I went alone. Now it takes 20 minutes to get from my house to the AM/PM to buy ice, get to the mine and get unloaded and start work. I pulled in and make sure I had shade over the work area and proceeded to study the wash that I’m working in. You see bedrock was visible on the west side of the wash but the east side is filled with sand and a delta with no defination to it at all. I went up to Doc’s work site and studyed it awhile. He told me the other day that the bedrock he had been following was going back up. So I took a line of shoot from his lowest point to the next lowest point in the wash and I came to the decission that I was about 2 maybe 3 feet from the lowest point in the wash. So I break out my shoval and start moving overburden.Well it wasn’t long til I started to run into bedrock and had to change methods. I worked at getting as much overburden out of the way as possible. I did not have time to really clean things up today due to a doctors appointment. I’m posting a few pictures for all of you to look at. I also added a picture of what I use 90% of the time to break thru to the gold. Many times we get carried away with tools. We think we have to have the latest and greatest whatever to get gold. Well my budget won’t allow me that luxure.
Oh by the way I forgot, I had visitors today. 3 rattlers decided to take up resting in the shade of my truck(underneath it) and stayed there the whole time.
Until next time, The 29 Prospector
If you enjoyed this article,
Real Nugget Hunters
I have posted a short version of this concept on Rob Alison’s Site and Bill Southern’s Site. I hope to go into more detail here especially for those who are still struggling with the hobby. Just so you all know I am not expect by any means. I have had no formal training in geology, but I did have the privilege of sitting at the feet of some oldtimers who have since passed on. I will try to post as many pictures as possible with explainations.
There is a gentleman on Bill Southern’s Site by the name of Paleface and I have come to realize he and I have a lot in common. We have both spent the better parts of our lives digging underground(hardrock mining), if not for ourselves, then for different companies. We have both done placer mining(wet and dry) and metal detecting. Although I do believe Paleface has more experence at dredging and metal detecting.
If there is one thing that I can honestly say about recreational mining it is this, “its not cheap and the majority of the equipment is heavy”. Please do not get discouraged for the rewards far exceed the pain.
Due to the lack of water in the desert, all my placer work has been of the dry type. I have had people, who have known me for most of my life, ask why? Why do you bust your butt digging in the dirt, putting up with rattle snakes, bees and the hot sun? Most of these people don’t get out in the desert for days at a time and enjoy the quite. Their idea of gold mining is walking around with a metal detector and just picking gold nuggets up off the ground.
Now I agree that is a very good question. So in order to answer that question I have decided to post a few pictures that I have taken over the years of some of our adventures. I will try to explain each picture as best I can. The gold pictures are from different washes. The washes span from the Pinto Mnts. to the Old Women Mnts. and the majority of it was found working beside my father.
You see, for me, its not about the gold. Its about being with friends or even being alone with the desert. My time prospecting and mining allows me the time to become one with the desert, learning from its ancient rocks and formations.
The gold, what about the gold? Well That’s God’s reward for my respecting of him, his earth, mankind and his solar system. God Bless all of you in your quests for that which is buried.
29 Prospector
If you enjoyed this article,
Real Nugget Hunters
Rod and I got out to check out a potential placer gold area on Sunday. An early start got us a head start on the heat of the day and we were able to spend several hours exploring before the heat of the day overtook us completely. We found a couple of nice bedrock washes in our intended area and went to work with our Minelabs.
The first wash had a real interesting look to it and having observed it from above, we knew that it split in two directions. I thought the left hand side looked best for gold nuggets but as fate would have it, it was pretty well choked with brush and although we could have navagated further, a swarm of bees halted us. We decided to check out the right trib and played leap frog to cover the bedrock. After digging a couple of trash targets, I got a really loud trash signal in a good spot. Even though it sounded trashy it looked like the best spot to dig for a nug that I had seen so far in this drainage. Sure enough, I popped a 4.7 gram copper nugget encased in host stone. No more nuggets came further upstream but by the end of the day I was able to grab a total of six copper nuggets.
Although we did not find any gold nuggets on this day, it was a good find all the same. Copper is an excellent indicator for gold and I always get excited when I see either copper mineralization or start finding copper nuggets. I know we will find gold either in this location or one nearby.
As always, we like to name the washes where we make finds and since copper is green and Rod and I both like Heavy Metal (both kinds, music and elemental), we dubbed it The Lost Green Manalishi wash.
Pictured below are the six nuggets totalling about 8 and a half grams.
If you enjoyed this article,
Real Nugget Hunters
Doc calls me the other day and wanted to know if I wanted to go mining? I ask him what kind of question is that anyway? I’ve been couped up for 2 weeks cause of the weather and this day there is a break in it so I said hell yes. He says well we are going to the mine that is 10 minutes away.I said I throught that the area was to small for 2 people? Well it was at first but I’ve done alot of road work and chopped down alot of brush so now we have a parking lot.
I load up, got gas ,got ice and munches and off we go. Now let me say this, for a man 72 years old, he did one hellva good job on the road and the brush. He went down the hill first and got his truck positioned where he wanted it and then it was my turn. I had my grandson with me so we proceed down the hill and stopped at the bottom and looked the area over to see where we wanted to work. Now my grandson has been going mining with me for 2 years and has listen quit well to what I was attempting to teach him. So I asked him, what do you think? Where should we start? He says I don’t know, lets climb the ridge over there and look it over first. Well we discussed the situation for about 10 minutes and he says that spot looks good. We are going to half to more alot of dirt but I think thats a good spot. So down the hill we go and I position the truck so that we have shade and unloaded it and proceeded to start moving overburden. We moved about 3 foot of overburden before we ran into rock or should I say boulders. It was at this point that we widened the hole, moved the boulders and cleared the dirt out so that bedrock was exposed. We ran 4 buckets and got 10 little pieces. Zach panned the material and got 3 little pickers(.3dwt total). Than he says, its your turn. I was ready. Well after planning all the material, we got 7 more pickers for a total weight of .92dwt. Mean while, Doc is digging away. We go over to see how he was doing and he had gotten several good pans. We left about 1pm, ran out of shade. It was a very good day for all the pictures are of our little hole and the gold.
If you enjoyed this article,
Real Nugget Hunters
