Short Trip To Baja

[Condor]

My prospecting partner from San Diego and I made a quick trip down to Baja for some prospecting.  The area is an old placer site about 190 miles south of the border.  He's been detecting the area for over 20 years, from Gold Bug through Minelab 2200 and now with the GPZ.  All the patches have been hit pretty hard but we managed to scrape up a few nice pieces.  We had 3 good days of detecting, I spent one day on the old patches and the rest of the time exploring for new spots.   My nugget total was half of his since he opted to stay on the old patches.  

We drove as far as we could up an old wash then traveled another 2 to 3 miles by motorbike,  then hiked another mile or so up some steep canyons.  He uses a Yamaha Big Wheel trail bike, I used my newest prospecting steed the Rokon 2 wheel drive mototractor.  The Rokon is a terrain traveling son of a gun, if you can hang on. I managed to dump it a couple times, invariably in bowling ball sized rocks or on steep boulder strewn hills.  I'm still nursing a bruised ankle after that 200 lb machine came down on top of me pinning my leg and ankle underneath.  It's definitely not for the faint of heart or those that are 2 wheel vehicle balance challenged (like me).  All my falls occurred from momentary indecision and hesitation.  The solution seems to be pick a line, then hit the gas or stay at home.

My nuggets all came from a single wash where recent rains had blown out some of the overburden leaving bedrock within detector depth.  My partner pulled almost an oz swinging low and slow over the old hillside placer diggings. 

This was really our tune up trip, preparing for an extended trip another 300 miles south after Christmas.   

 

[fredmason]

Steve...you got to be crazy!!! Those Rocon will take you anywhere-if, you can stay on them...too much for me to ride.

Nice gold!!!

fred

[beatup]

WTG ,Steve I was wondering if you had been out finding nuggets .Looks like you should be able to get into some out of the ways places with the new toy.Good luck to you when you head south after Xmas ,maybe when you get back to Yuma we can get a few days detecing in, i should be in yuma sometime after the first of the year.Find a big one .

[IronDigger]

Sweet....nice adventure.

[Condor]

48 minutes ago, fredmason said:

Steve...you got to be crazy!!! Those Rocon will take you anywhere-if, you can stay on them...too much for me to ride.

Nice gold!!!

fred

You're right about that Fred.  I've done some upgrades, to that little Honda 160cc engine. They need to breath a little more so I added bored out racing carb, exhaust header, high flow air filter then jiggered the governor to squeeze out every bit of rpms.  So much torque it will jump out from under you, and now more top end speed than I will ever need.  I also added the aftermarket new front fork with shock absorber.   A sweet machine and will no doubt result in another Dr. visit or two. 

[LuckyLundy]

WTG!

Rick

[mn90403]

Tumble, roll, slide, smash, ankle busting, etc, etc ...

Good GOD (gold) Steve!  Be careful.

Mitchel

[vanursepaul]

8 hours ago, Condor said:

You're right about that Fred.  I've done some upgrades, to that little Honda 160cc engine. They need to breath a little more so I added bored out racing carb, exhaust header, high flow air filter then jiggered the governor to squeeze out every bit of rpms.  So much torque it will jump out from under you, and now more top end speed than I will ever need.  I also added the aftermarket new front fork with shock absorber.   A sweet machine and will no doubt result in another Dr. visit or two. 

I think it was son Payton who did the mechanic work---- just a guess!!!

AND put a cover on that pick before you wreck and bleed out from a kidney puncture....!!!!

[Condor]

10 hours ago, vanursepaul said:

I think it was son Payton who did the mechanic work---- just a guess!!!

AND put a cover on that pick before you wreck and bleed out from a kidney puncture....!!!!

It's great to have a mechanic in the family.  I did put the pick inside my pack and it punctured my camelback bladder.  I had to cut that day short after running out of water.  So I went back to camp and drank beer. 

[vanursepaul]

Hahahah.. great choice for emergency hydration---

seems like my Aussie mates know that trick well