** Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine ** A Miners Journal **

[GhostMiner]

   Some further info here : We were lucky to have the pond on the mountain at the northern area of the claims. The crew that worked there in the mid 1960's was where we got a lot of the information in the old report. The old time hydraulic companies had worked this area but never got down to much of the pay gravels because of the Sawyer Decision of 1884 which pretty much shut down large scale hydraulic mining. So they had removed some of the overburdon in some areas which helped us out quite a bit. Being in a fault zone, bedrock tends to be all over the place. There are areas of exposed bedrock and areas where it's 110 feet or more below the surface. A geologist's nightmare as one person called it. We have used that pond to pump water 2000 feet at times by running several pumps in series using 3 inch layflat hose. Sometines, if we need more pressure, we downsize the hose with a coupler and go 3 inch down to 2 inch. Running 300 ft rolls of layflat acros a mountain is a workout and a half - especially in 100 degree heat. Getting water up there from the creeks is a long haul of about 3000 - 3500 ft and an altitude change of 100 - 200 ft depending on location. That's why we prefer the pond in that area.

[GhostMiner]

   Back in 2019 I took a bad fall on the mine while running water line. There were three of us working that day. It was July and the temp was about 110 degrees. We were running 2000 feet of 3 inch layflat from the source pond to a 180 ft long holding pond. We had built a dam across the middle of it with a little notched out spillway. We dropped pine trees and bucked them up. Then we used our excavator to haul them to the pond, set them in place, pack them in with gravel, and line the 5 ft high dam with plastic sheeting. You could walk right across it when finished.  The trommel sat on a pad on on side and shot fine sluice tailings into one side and the dam that was used to settle the water before it came into the clean side where our pump for the trommel sat. We used the holding pond and dam to recirculate water supply and refreshed the pond from the source pond 2000 ft across the mountain. 

   Water had to come up out of the source pond and gain 90 ft of altitude before it leveled out and eventually went downhill to the recirculating pond. One 3 inch pump didn't have enough head (lift) to clear the 90 feet so we were forced to put a second pump in series before the big rise in order to clear it. Once the water cleared the 90 ft height it was clear sailing.

   So there was an old Forest Service road we needed to get the water line under about 500 feet before it got to it's final destination. Luckily, there was a culvert and we ran the line under the road there. We had to use 2 45 degree fittings on each side of the culvert to make the turns because the road ran in line with the hose direction. We had no idea what would happen when the water crashed through. It ended up working just fine somehow and it didn't seem like we lost much pressure if any at all. There was a big drop off on the exit side of the culvert and I was pulling hose through. It was nearly a straight 30 ft drop of hardpacked gravels with nowhere to get a foot hold. Well, you guessed it - I lost my footing and went over backwards all the way to the bottom. Somehow, all I got was bruised and scraped up. I was pretty sore the next morning. I've had several bad falls on the mine and walked away from all of them. I think the old crew is looking out for me. 

[GhostMiner]

   Still on the subject of taking a bad fall, I can't stress enough how dangerous old mine sites can sometimes be. Severe drop offs and hidden shafts, large rocks, and many other places to get hurt. This incident took place in August of 2020. At the site where we set the trommel next to the 180 ft long recirculation pond I once again took a fall that could have been a bad one. The trommel was set 20 ft or so above the pond and the ground was on a steep angle. Before we had water in the pond I was setting up a heavy plastic sheet for the sluice runoff to run down and into the tailing side. To the left of that was just hard packed gravel that ran at a steep angle for about 50 or 60 feet down to the flat ground below. We had a crew of 6 working that day. They pulled up with one of the pickup trucks around noon and hollered over to me it was time for lunch and if I was coming I could catch a ride to camp about 3/4 mile away. Seeing as the temperature was already close to 100 degerees in the sun I sure didn't want to walk back to camp.

   There were several small Ponderosa pines on the hill and unknown to me there was a very thin and barely visible root running across the hill about halfway down. Yes, a trip wire if there ever was one. The crew was sitting on the haul road waiting on me so I took off down the hill running downhill towards the parked truck. Well, my right foot caught the root and I felt myself going head first down that steep grade. One of the crew members (Vern) hollered "OH NO" as I went flying. Somehow, out of instinct probably from my old baseball and boxing days, I went into a tuck & roll - tucking my head to my chest and rolling on my right shoulder and right back up on my feet like it was no big deal. One of the guys was amazed and asked me how the hell I did that. I just laughed and said that was a tuck & roll and I guess there is still a little athlete left in me. But I knew how lucky I was to be walking away completely unhurt from that fall. Once again, I think the old crew is watching over me.

[GhostMiner]

   Up on the faultline looking at some of the old workings.

[GhostMiner]

   Here is one of the old debris shoots from the hydraulic company of 1860 - 1880 era. There are a number of them. They used these to shoot tailings down the mountain to the creek below. If you did that today they would lock you up and throw away the key. However, it makes for intersting prospecting. The long toms could be up to 800 feet in length before hitting these areas and all the gold they missed would end up in these cuts. The area here is very remote with lots of bear tracks and mountain lion tracks as well. Very hard to get water there but could be done with great effort. I would like to use a drywasher here in the dry Summer months. Also would be good for metal detecting.

[GhostMiner]

   The Deere 690 parked near one of the creeks.

[GhostMiner]

   A warning to claim jumpers.

[GhostMiner]

   May 4   2002     Part One     Vern Gets Himself Stuck

 

   When we got up to the mine site this morning Vern went up the mountain to get the pump running and send some fresh water down to the holding pond. We all carry walkie talkies on us. There was a bit of a frantic call down to the crew at the mine site from Vern. It seemed he had got himself stuck in the pond. When we got up there we saw his predicament. The pump was set near the bank of the pond. It had a twenty foot suction line with a filter on the end. It had been sucking water from just about five feet from the edge of the pond and Vern decided he wanted to move it out into deeper water. Evidently, he hadn’t been able to throw the line out as far as he wanted so he decided to walk it out to its full twenty feet of length. Around fifteen feet from the pond’s edge he started to sink into the silt below his feet. The more he tried to extricate himself the deeper he sank. He was beginning to panic. 

   He had told us to bring rope so we could pull him out. I couldn’t tell how far down his legs were in the silt but he said he thought two feet or nearly knee high. He was definitely in trouble. Jim threw the rope out to him and he tied it around his waist and grabbed ahold of it with both hands. Jim, Jacob, and I pulled with all our strength on and off for a good half hour before we got him free. Both of his boots had pulled off his feet because of the suction and we dragged him across the water and back to solid ground. He was pretty shook up and darn lucky someone was there to rescue him. I went back to camp and got his spare pair of boots and we eventually got back down to the dig site. What a way to start the day. 

 

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

[geof_junk]

I know how Vern felt. One of my hobbies is sea kayaking in large lakes. On an adventure in a new lake, I paddled up to the edge of the shore. The water was only inches deep and I could not get any closer. Extracting one's body from a sea kayak is adventure in it self. However I got out, in a bed of mud and went up to my knees. When I lifted one leg of coarse all my weight went on the other pushing it deeper and so on. I finally got out using the kayak for support, got to edge of the lake finally. By the way an Eskimo roll was not considered in that situation.

 🤪     

[GhostMiner]

7 hours ago, geof_junk said:

I know how Vern felt. One of my hobbies is sea kayaking in large lakes. On an adventure in a new lake, I paddled up to the edge of the shore. The water was only inches deep and I could not get any closer. Extracting one's body from a sea kayak is adventure in it self. However I got out, in a bed of mud and went up to my knees. When I lifted one leg of coarse all my weight went on the other pushing it deeper and so on. I finally got out using the kayak for support, got to edge of the lake finally. By the way an Eskimo roll was not considered in that situation.

 🤪     

   You were lucky to get out of that situation without help. I don't think Vern would ever have gotten out by himself.