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Fifty Feet From Glory ** My Adventures At Jed's Dig Site


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   September 29   2012

 

   We were up bright and early. It got damn cold last night, close to freezing. The sun was coming up and the day was a beauty. I had to run into town to get some supplies and when I was waiting in line to check out of the store I got to talking with a guy in front of me. I told him I was prospecting for gold and was hoping to do some mining in the area. The conversation which had been pleasant turned sour real fast. He looked at me and said “You’re not one of those people are you” with kind of a nasty look on his face. I told him that yes, I was. I told him I realized the old time miners had caused a lot of problems but modern mining wasn’t anything like that. I explained to him about permits, environmental impact studies, & reclamation plans and bonds but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. This guy didn’t like miners and didn’t want to hear any more from me on the subject. Then he asked me where I was prospecting. Now I can get as nasty as anyone if pressed so I just told him that seeing he had such a bad attitude and didn’t want to hear anything more from me that where I was prospecting was none of his business. With that the conversation ended.

   When I got back to the claims we headed back out to the creek. I wanted one more day out there before moving on to test other ground. We got set up and worked away at the bank gravels. I also tried to get some good samples from higher up on the wall. There were good signs of color and a couple of what I would call hot spots. The problem is it would be real tough getting a little excavator in there and the Forest Service would never let us walk one down the creek. They would also never let us dig this close to the creek with heavy equipment. It would need to be worked by hand so we would need to see some pretty good results from the samples. Otherwise it would be hobby mining which is fine but we were looking for something with some commercial value. I might be able to get an excavator in by staying close to the eastern side and then crossing the creek with an approved permit.Then it might be possible to dig back against the wall and make some room. There were a few places where the banks weren’t too steep and were set back from the creek a bit so I wasn’t ruling it out. The eastern side had more room but we couldn’t get any good samples from that side. It’s always something to slow you down. I would have to give this some thought. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

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19 hours ago, rvpopeye said:

Still outta Oh My's  I'll post 'em tomorrow ! 

 

 

 

 

LOL. That's ok.

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10 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   September 28   1936

 

   Dustin and I now had friends on the mountain. We would back each other up if there was trouble. Gary’s crew was a rough bunch but were not afraid to stand up to trouble makers. I felt the same way. Nobody was ever going to push me around on my claims and I had no problem with fighting for what was mine. 

   We set off on an exploration of the northern ravine where the north/south creek ran. The walls  got higher and steeper the further north we went and also it was much more remote. The creek was now about 100 feet below the top of the walls and fairly narrow with not much room on either side. There was good water flowing and we had our 12 volt highbanker and a spiral wheel I had purchased. We would use that to clean up the concentrates before a final panning.

   It was a cool and clear morning and the peacefulness of the location made me want to work there all the more. We shoveled away at the bottom of the steep banks and limited floodplain areas and fed the highbanker. We weren’t able to move much gravel through it at a fast pace but it was perfect for sampling. I found that using a 2200 GPH 12 volt bilge pump I could process about 200 - 400 pounds of gravel per hour and we could do about a yard a day maximum. That would be if we set down all day on one spot without moving but our intentions at this point were to just sample multiple locations and mark them on our maps. We were finding some good spots up there and we worked until around 4:00 PM.

   We headed back to camp with a little gold in our vile and were quite pleased with the day’s results. It felt good to be out here in the mountains and prospecting for gold. We were away from society and had no cell service. We listened to the radio at night when we relaxed and talked about the claims and life in general. I knew at this point that I would never go back to my regular life. I was hooked. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

You must have stepped back in time on this day in......1936! :89:

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6 minutes ago, Gold Seeker said:

You must have stepped back in time on this day in......1936! :89:

If only I could.

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I told you I'd OH My and so they will appear . 

I even started Oh Mying on some of your comments as well as the stories !

It's nothing compared to writing your posts !

Your stories are a great escape from the beat down I've been getting from a couple of phone co's lately. I think Dutch the third might be working for them ! skuh kuh kuh kuh kuh

 

 

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   September 30   2012

 

   Another cold night and we ate breakfast as the sun came up. The thermometer said 35 degrees. It warms up nicely by noon though. Today we went all the way out to the eastern most claim where there was full scale hydraulic mining but they never finished the ground because of California’s law that severely limited hydraulic mining starting in 1884. I think there’s about two million yards of virgin gravels left out there. 

   We had to walk out there on an old road because there is a gate and we don’t have a lock on it yet. There are several locks in a daisy chain set up and we need to get our own put in the link. So the walk in is about ½ mile. We took some buckets and a pick and shovel and tried to dig samples out of the side of the hill where the old timers had stopped. It was hard to get in deep enough because of all the sluff and runoff that occurred over the years. This area hasn’t been worked since 1860. We spent all day trying to get a hole into the side but we will need to spend another day or two digging in to get to virgin ground.

   We left the buckets out there and hiked back to camp around 4:30 PM. We were really tired from the all day digging. Tomorrow we will try to get in deeper. I’m missing that creek site already. Dustin cooked Spam on a frying pan and it sure tasted good. We also had a black bear come to the edge of camp just after dark. He must have smelled our supper. I got a flashlight and headed over in his direction and banged on some pans and he left the area. Hopefully he won’t come back. We are careful to cook away from where we sleep and clean everything up after we eat but there are plenty of bear in this area. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...................

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   October 1   2012

 

   I was talking with Gary today. They are planning on closing down their operation at the bottom of the mountain. He told me they got 50 ounces of gold from their run. I’m not sure how many yards they ran but I think it sounded like they did pretty darn good. Gold is about $1600 an ounce so they got around $80,000. This makes me want to mine here all the more. The old timers missed a lot and never got to all the virgin ground. There has to be thousands of ounces left. He invited Dustin and me to come down for supper and have a few drinks with them so I said sure, we’ll be down. 

   Dustin and I worked some more at the eastern area of virgin gravels trying to get a good hole going deeper into the hill. We worked all day and got in pretty good so I think one more day of digging and we should get some good samples. The old timers worked it to bedrock and left a steep hill of virgin material that is about 90 feet high and at a steep angle. There are several acres of it. We are going in and down as bedrock is only 10 feet or so. I can’t wait to see what these guys from the 1850’s were mining. I bet it was good.

   We finished up for the day and got cleaned up and headed down to Gary’s camp around 6:00 PM. They were cooking burgers and some stew. It sure smelled good. We had a couple shots of Jack and had supper. Then we all sat around camp and did some more drinking. Dustin and I passed on the joints. Gary was winding tails about mining all over the west. He’d worked claims in Montana, Nevada, Idaho, California, and also worked on a crew up in Alaska. He was quite knowledgeable about anything to do with taking gold out of the ground. We ended up sitting down there talking until 1:00 AM. He said they would be packing up and heading out in a day or so. We shook hands and I thanked him for his hospitality and all his help. He said that they might be back here next year and we’d talk more on how to mine. Then Dustin and I headed back up the mountain to our camp. It was a good night. I really don’t want to leave but cold weather is not far off. 

 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...................

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2 minutes ago, rvpopeye said:

OH MY 

 

This stuff is all true. These are my personal experiences. Not all of them are written down & some will be from memory. They should be accurate as this wasn't that long ago. All the good, the bad, and the ugly.

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