Broke Quad Gold Gulch

[Condor]

I took my well worn Polaris 500 out for some exploration in an area that produced gold last year.  It had been giving some fuel problems so my son replaced the carburetor and all the fuel and vacuum hoses.  It ran fine at home, so I thought it was good to go.  I got out to gold country and about 3 miles out from camp it crapped out from a want of fuel.  I could get it started and running only if choked.  I had no tools with me and decided to walk back to camp and futz with it tomorrow.  This morning I packed basic tools and plotted a walking course that would at least take me past some spots that had produced gold last year.  After numerous hills and gullys I crossed a gully that had some exposed bedrock so I detoured and noticed signs of digging in a portion of shallow overburden.  Sure enough someone had scrapped a signal and given up thinking it was just hot bedrock.  I pulled 2 tiny bits of gold out of the same hole and noticed that this particular gully ran NW in the direction I needed to go anyway.   As I got further up the gully I could see that the oldtimers had handstacked portions of the gully and someone in the near recent past had detected it, marking target spots with a few stacked rocks.  I can only assume they detected it with a VLF because I started finding gold with the Zed in the deeper sections and in the banks under handstacked rocks.  After 3 decent nuggets I was stoked and forgot all about that crapped out quad.  As always good things come to an end.  I got to the end of the gully finding all the gold pictured below. 

I climbed a high spot to get my bearings and found that the quad was only 1/2 mile away.  I got down there and futzed with the quad and found that I could get it going with minimal throttle and choke locked.  I poked along until it died again with no sign of restarting.  After futzing with the fuel lines a while longer I found the newly installed hose had pulled the fuel return cock fitting out of the carb.  I jammed it back in, she started right up and ran like a scalded dog. 

So, if my quad had not crapped out and forced me to walk over some new ground, I probably would have come home with a few crumbs.  Although, I still have high hopes for the area I intended to explore, you just never know. 

Bye the way I was running the Zed WFO, HY Normal, Sens 20, Volume maxed, Threshold at 1(only because there is no 0).  Very quiet ground to work in, minimal trash.  The lack of threshold is making some tiny nuggets pop through, maybe its just me, but I'm really liking these settings.

Until next time, keep er low and slow. 

 

[AU_Solitude]

Very nice - your quad should break down more often.

[Ridge Runner]

Condor

 Great story and greater gold you found. Maybe you need to hug your Quad and say thank you. haha It's odd that the bad day turns out to be your best day.

Chuck

[Condor]

The fact is "Big Red" has been one of the most reliable pieces of equipment I've owned and I'm hard on equipment.  My son is the mechanic of the family and he keeps up on the maintenance, me I just drive the crap out of em.  I'll go back out later this week and finish my exploration as well as explore the side gullys and hillsides where these nuggets came from.  They obviously haven't traveled far from the source, but in this part of AZ alluvial movement is scarce.  These nuggets were scattered over nearly 1/2 mile of shallow overburden gully, most of them tucked into the side banks where they haven't moved in many years.  I sure wish I had found this before the oldtimers and the VLF detector had gone over them. 

[idahogold]

I love u guys! 5weeks later and 50 tons moved to a new house. I finally get a chance to look at the forum its been awhile.... and Boom! all great info and experiences shared...helps me forget theres 12 inches of snow on the ground outside.... Thanks Condor for all your great shares! Cheers from 20 degree central Idaho. jd

[vet69]

Good story. Sometimes gold just has your name written  all over it.  cheers, vet69

[beatup]

Congrats on turning a bad day into a good day Steve.