Detecting Baja Continued

[Condor]

I didn't finish the first trip to Baja report and now have a second trip to report.

Trip one was 10 days over 400 miles south of the border.  We found gold nearly every day, mostly small pickers for me, but my guide, the Maestro found some nice 4 and 5 gram pieces.  The last day the Maestro took us to rough looking gully where he explained that he had never found a lot of gold in this gully, but all were large nuggets.  He gave me the lead and I worked up the gully to an area where more recent rains had eroded one side out of the main channel.  Right away, a 2 grammer then 4 ft away a really nice signal.  After about 30 minutes of digging into the bank and tumbling a big boulder out came an 11 gram slug.  That brought my total up to 28 grams.  The Maestro finished with I believe 38 grams.  The Maestro consistently beats me for total weight.  The main difference is that he will dig more questionable targets and he will spend more time with the coil on the ground when I'm exploring what's over that next ridge.  A detecting style I will probably never break. 

Trip 2 was only about 200 miles south of the border, 5 days.  We had to take "big red" my poor old beat up Polaris 500 ATV because of the distance to the placer zone.  We rode double with the Maestro carrying his detector on a sling over his shoulders and my detector in his lap.  Some rough sledding and "big red" had its difficulties with narrow rock chutes and steep rock climbs.  One of the electronic parts that controls the cooling fan and charging circuit caught on fire.  Using a mexican speed wrench, (vice grips) we took off the radiator housing to bypass the burnt part.  One thing about the Polaris is its redundancy.  We lost some cooling capacity and the ability to use the electric start, but we could pull start the old fashioned way.  The only down side of pull starting is yanking when its on the compression stroke, ouch!  Eventually yanked the rubber start handle right off on one of those compression strokes.  The Maestro fashioned a new start handle out of a green tree limb and it will probably outlast the whole machine.

But we found good gold.  On day 2 I got into an area of bowling ball sized hot rocks and the Z really lights them up.  I got frustrated and worked my way down to the main wash and an area of bedrock.  One 50 ft section was loaded with up to 1 gram nuggets.  I found 23 pieces in about 3 hrs. 

Maestro was his slow methodical self and pulled some multigram pieces up on the hillside and consistently outscored me in total weight.  On day 4 I was off exploring and just pushing my coil along a high bench with some old Tertiary gravels.  I got a screeching, warbling signal that surely sounded like trash but dug it just to see what the old timers had left behind.  Out popped a 12 gram specimen nugget with quartz and host rock wrapped around it.  I called the Maestro on the radio to have him come over to the new spot.  I told him I had a nice piece convinced I had him beat for today's best find.  He showed up an hr later and told me he had something to show me.  He pulled out a beautiful 21 gram piece.  Damn, I can't beat that guy, but we do enjoy the competition. 

We finished up this short trip with a good pile of gold.  Maestro finished with 79 grams, me 48 grams.  We did not see another soul out there in placer country.  Saw desert BigHorn Sheep a couple times and the camp got raided by a pair of ravens.  Crafty bastards punched holes in plastic water bottles and took whole bags of potato chips away with them.  We named them Barack, since they perched up on the Ocotillo above our camp and shouted their names at us. 

Photos to follow from my camera phone.

[Condor]

Baja photos

[Ridge Runner]

Condor

 That is some good looking gold  you found.  The thing is when you step over that line you could become  lost in space.

Don't get me wrong I'd like to do that too. I just don't know who are what I like the most me and the gold. It could be just me without the gold.

Just be safe and come back for another show and tell.

Chuck

PS A gun is better any day than a 2 x 4 but I know that's a no no.

[dgatleyDP]

Condor, Great haul for your pokes!  Kudos!

Q - I love Baja, but have run into Federalies and other not so cool dudes down there.  Just wondering if you had any such encounters.  

If you were on the East side (Sea of Cotez), you may not have had problems, but the West side of Baja is getting much worse IMHO.

400 miles South puts you in Bajia de Los Angeles area...  Huge area, great canyons, great Big Horn Sheep hunting area (with Lic.). 

[beatup]

Steve, looks and sounds like it was a great trip,congrats on some real good gold.

[IDdesertman]

Great story and some beautiful desert gold!

[jasong]

Awesome!! Hope you keep us updated if you go down again, not often I see someone posting from a totally new place.

[Tortuga]

Wow that's some really nice gold, you had a great trip.

Your partner knows the secret, go low and slow, keep the coil down and take your time.

[deathray]

Your living life right man. Enjoy reading about your adventures!

[Condor]

Maestro has been detecting this spot for 25 yrs with the Gold Bug and SD2200.  The gold we found was beyond the detection range of those detectors and the bedrock I found gold on had been uncovered by a storm in the past couple years.  Any detector would have found that bedrock gold.  We covered a lot of hard miles each day.  Temps were mid 80's to 90's with a decent breeze.  Still we each ran through 1/2 gallon of water each day. 

No trouble with locals, feds or military.  1 military checkpoint with a cursory examination of our gear.  Mexican customs insists you have registration for the ATV when entering country.

Very little trash even though there are miles of old drywash tailings.  The Tertiary gravels had some horrendous hot rocks that make the Z operator dig a lot of holes for some deep rocks.  I spent an hour trying to bust a booming signal out of caliche, but when I switched to Severe it disappeared.  Just to be sure I put a .5 gram nugget down next to it and the nugget signal came through clear at 4 inches.   

Some more pictures.

Maestro's gold and "big red" on the trail.