Jump to content

Steve's 2014 Alaska Gold Adventure


Recommended Posts

Edit: I chronicled this trip to Alaska first, and then told the story of my earlier 2013 Alaska Trip after the fact. I did well enough in 2013 I did not want to tip anyone off to what I was up to until I had a chance to return in 2014. Therefore this story got told first, as if the other had not happened. And then the 2013 story was told at the link above.

My history with the Fortymile Mining District of Alaska began in the 1970's and has continued off and on ever since. Last summer I spent considerable time in the area and have decided to return again this summer.

Here is the basic plan. I leave Monday to drive from Reno to Alaska. I am stopping a day to visit family in Olympia then will continue to Anchorage, where I will pick up my brother Tom who is flying up from the Lower 48. Then we will backtrack to Chicken, Alaska and pitch a tent site at the Buzby's Chicken Gold Camp http://www.chickengold.com

Main building at Chicken Creek Gold Camp
Main building at Chicken Creek Gold Camp

Last year I mostly camped around but did spend a period of time at the Buzby's operation. When I was out and about I had to activate my satellite phone to stay in touch because there is no cell phone service in the Chicken area. The nearest cell phone access is a couple hours back along the road at Tok. There is WiFi access at several locations in Chicken however, one of them being at Chicken Gold Camp. The WiFi access is included in the price of staying there. I am getting a dry camp site for $14 a day (6 days get seventh day free) but it saves me $300 activating my satellite phone, and WiFi allows me to keep on the forum and stay in better touch with my wife than the sat phone. Bottom line not activating the sat phone ends up paying for nearly a month of staying at Chicken Gold Camp. Right now I am booked from June 15 until July 20 but may extend.

Since I will have pretty much daily Internet access for the entire trip I am inviting you along via this thread to see how we are doing plus to perhaps answer questions for anyone planning to visit Alaska. The Internet access in Chicken is not the greatest even at its best, as the satellite dishes point straight at the horizon just trying to get a signal. That being the case plus I will be busy I will not be posting on other forums for the duration. If you know anyone who might be interested in following this point them this way. I will report in at least a couple times a week and probably more often as time allows or something interesting happens.

My brother and I will be commuting to various locations from our base camp in Chicken, with a lot of attention paid to Jack Wade Creek about 20 minutes drive up the road. I have access to mining claims on this and other creeks in the area, but we will also spend considerable time on the public access area on the lower 2.5 miles of Jack Wade Creek. Visit this link for more information. This area is open to non-motorized mining and we will of course be metal detecting.

I have detected on Jack Wade a lot, and I can tell you it is an exercise in hard work and patience. It is all tailing piles full of nails and bullets. The nuggets are very few and far between, with even a single nugget in a day a good days work. However, the nuggets are solid and can be large so can add up if you put in a lot of time. Or not as luck does have a bit to do with it. You could easily spend a week detecting Wade Creek and find nothing. So do not be surprised when I make lots of reports indicating nothing found on a given day. We fully expect that to be the case but hope we hope a month of detecting here and at other locations will pay off.

I plan on relying mostly on my GPX 5000 but will also be using a Gold Bug Pro for trashy locations or for when I am tired from running the big gun and want to take it easy. I usually run my 18" mono coil on the GPX unless in steep terrain or brushy locations and dig everything. And that means a lot of digging! The Gold Bug Pro eliminates digging a lot of trash and is easy to handle in thick brush. My brother will mostly use my old GP 3000 he bought from me years ago. I am also bringing along the Garrett ATX kind of for backup and also to experiment around with. It also will be easier to use in brushy locations than the GPX. Finally, I hope to possibly have a new Minelab SDC 2300 get shipped to me somewhere along the way to use on some bedrock locations I know of that have been pretty well pounded to death.

Chris Ralph will be arriving in Fairbanks on July 8th so I will drive in and pick him up. He will be staying with Tom and I until I return him to Fairbanks on July 21.

High on the list is to visit with Dick Hammond (chickenminer) and other friends in the area.

The road to Alaska is just another highway these days, with the only real issue being the lack of gas in northern Canada in the middle of the night. The pumps there still do not take credit cards so when the gas station closes you are stuck there until it opens in the morning. Do not try to get gas at Dot Lake at 2AM! I will drive to Olympia to spend a night and day with my mom (12 hours) then on to Dawson Creek/Fort St. John (16 hours), then to Whitehorse (15 hours), and then to Anchorage (12 hours). Four days driving, about $500 in gas for my Toyota 4-Runner. Pick up Tom and some supplies and then back to Chicken (about 8 hours).

Anyway, you are all invited along at least via the internet to share in the adventure. You have any questions about Alaska in the process then fire away.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Should be quite the adventure, and should be something to show most days. We will have three guys working when I am there and you will have two before I arrive, so each day will have more targets dug than if just one guy was working - more chances for gold finding. 

Right now I am leaning toward using my Fisher T2, but may do the GB Pro - they are so light, I may bring both with one to use as a back up.  I will also bring my Whites TRX pinpointer - the faster the target is out of the hole, the sooner you are on to the next one. Most trash, bullets and nuggets of any size will be no problem to the pinpointer, though smaller stuff may be tougher.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Taylor Highway to Chicken is paved but unpaved from there on over into Canada. They grade it regularly but it can be a mess during heavy rains and dangerously soft shoulders. Constant stream of tour buses, huge RVs, and motorcycles making the loop all summer. Our daily commute to Jack Wade will be on dirt roads.

I've made the trip something like twelve times now but still look forward to the drive. Beautiful scenery and if you hit it right tons of wildlife; bears, bison, sheep, goats, deer, elk, etc. I promise you also if you ever get used to driving 16 hour days a two hour drive will never seem like anything but a short hop afterwards!

Muncho Lake, British Columbia, Canada. I took this photo spring of 2010. The green color of the lake is attributed to the presence of copper oxide leached from the bedrock underneath. Yet the lake is home to lake trout, arctic grayling, bull trout and whitefish. What was that again about copper mineralization being deadly to fish?

muncho.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best of luck to all on this adventure. I am looking forward to seeing pictures and updates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another great adventure...hope you guys get some big ones and little ones...or, as i tell people i take prospecting; these are my Rules,

I want the first, the last, the biggest and the most. You can have the rest. That seems ever so reasonable to me.

 

fred

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll be out of internet service this upcoming week, so will have to catch up when I get back, seems like we are both on our own adventures just at different parts of the globe. One of these days I'll have to come over and see what all the fuss is about, those mountains looks massive!!!!!'

Take care Steve and Chris, looking forward to when we can all catch up again.

JP

PS I owe both you guys an email, will get back in touch when I have internet again. :-) Gold is coming in steady this year so far, I've got a good feeling about 2014.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whew, glad I got that done! 4-Runner is packed with camping and prospecting gear and three weeks supply of food, will resupply in Fairbanks when I pick Chris up in July. Got some extra stuff for my brother and Chris so it ended up being all I could shoehorn into the rig. Hit the road in the morning for Olympia so this forum will be about the only place I can be reliably found for the immediate future. The getting ready part is stressful so I will decompress when I finally hit the road.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...