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

[GhostMiner]

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[GhostMiner]

   October 3   2012

 

   I got up early this morning and didn’t sleep very well. Dustin got up an hour after me. I’d already had coffee and was making oatmeal on the stove. I was also keeping an eye peeled for that mountain lion. I was hoping not to see it again. We got kind of a late start but eventually grabbed the pick and shovels along with some buckets and headed up to the north claims. This was wooded and had been partially hydraulicked in the 1800’s. It was about 100 feet higher in altitude than our camp. We found an old road up to part of the area and that made the hike easier. It looked like it hadn’t been used in a long time. We stopped and headed east away from the road. There were hand stacked rock piles all over the place and some visible bedrock here and there and maybe some tailings piles as well. 

   I picked a likely area just a little way off from some exposed bedrock and started to dig. Dustin moved over about 100 feet and did the same. I got down about two feet and hit hard rock. Bedrock. I took samples off the surface gravels. Then I moved a little higher up the mountain away from where Dustin was working. I lost sight of him but I could hear his shovel banging away. I found a nice area of what looked like virgin gravel and started digging it.I stayed on it and then I saw Dustin coming up as well. I told him to have at it as it looked promising so we both tried to get some good test holes going. We must have dug for four hours or so and still didn’t hit a bottom. We were down a good five feet. I decided to take some buckets of this stuff back down to camp. It was about mid afternoon so we grabbed a quick lunch and hauled the buckets and highbanker over to the creek in the back of my truck. About 6:00 PM we were done and processed the cons through the spiral wheel. There was some nice gold in there. We weighed it up and calculated around $50/yard. I want to get back up there tomorrow and dig more gravel. By now it was dark and we cooked supper. Canned hash with some fried Spam thrown in for good measure. Then a few beers and some wine and we hit the sack.

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

[GhostMiner]

   I have to state here that at this early stage of exploration we knew nothing of the gold strike or where Jed had worked. As I have said, the miner and gold strike were absolutely real. We had actually hiked up the road he had made back in 1936. We were just southeast of his diggings but had no clue. If we had continued on the road a little farther north we would have seen them. Now when I say road I'm really talking an overgrown trail. A few years later we ended up working on this road with a skid steer to improve it. It's still not much of a road though.

[GhostMiner]

23 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

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Agree.

[GhostMiner]

   October 4   2012

 

   We headed back up to the northern claim and did more digging. It appears to me that this area was hydraulicked to some degree but the work had stopped short of getting all the gravels. That most likely was because of California’s restriction on hydraulic mining practices that started in 1884. Bad news for the old timers but good news for me. I am just trying to locate some good ground up here and I think I may have found it. We dug until early afternoon and took everything to the creek. Rough work hauling the buckets down to the truck but I can get water up here if we mine it. The gravels ended up averaging out to close to $70/yard today. Averaging the two days of testing gave us $60/yard. This is good ground to mine if we can prove there is enough of it so I’ve decided to keep moving and testing there a few more days.

   

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

[GhostMiner]

   October 5   2012

 

   We took a day off from digging and did some scouting on the remote areas of the claims. We hiked out to the northeast areas and discovered an old hydraulic pit maybe ½ acre in size and at a depth of around 50 to 60 feet below the rim. We went down in the pit and took a look around. I saw no visible bedrock which might mean it was not reached or it has been buried under sluff from all the years of erosion from the walls. We had shovels and tried digging down in the middle of the pit away from the walls but didn’t see bedrock so I am going to sample this area tomorrow.

   Back at camp we had a good dinner of hotdogs and beans and chased it down with cold beer. As soon as the sun set the temperatures dropped off quickly and we got in the tent and used a Buddy propane heater to ward off the chill. The night was stone quiet and I hoped it would stay that way. 

   

   TO BE CONTINUED ..................

[GhostMiner]

   October 6   2012

 

   This morning we got up a little after sunup and had a good breakfast of hot oatmeal with peanut butter mixed in and topped with maple syrup. One of my favorite breakfasts. We grabbed our shovels and buckets and hiked out to the pit we discovered yesterday. On the way out we ran into two guys with metal detectors. I asked them what they were looking for and one of them said whatever they could find. I explained that the grounds mineral rights were under claim by us and they legally couldn’t remove any precious metals. The guy doing the talking pretty much laughed in my face and said he didn’t see any claim signs. I explained to him that we were doing some posting and sampling on the claims but hadn’t got everything posted the way I wanted. I also explained that it was his responsibility to check to see if the ground was open to prospecting for precious metals or had federal claims filed. Then I showed him the paperwork from the county and BLM which I sometimes but not always carry with me. Luckily this day I had it on me. The guy and his buddy gave us attitudes and said they were going to keep detecting. I told them just don’t remove any of my legally claimed gold. Then the guy said F you and they started walking away swinging their detectors. My son in law was outraged and told them they had no business talking to us like that and we had been polite with them. They ignored him and kept detecting. Dustin was ready to fight but I calmed him down and said to let it pass, it wasn’t worth the trouble. 

   So we got out to the pit and started digging in the middle area. We actually got down about four feet and didn’t hit bedrock. The gravels looked pretty good to me and we took some bucket samples and headed back towards camp. When we got back we had a surprise. Our camp had been trashed. The tent was down and the stove kicked over. Our beer was gone and some of the other supplies were also missing. We spent an hour straightening everything up and had some time before dark so Dustin drove into town and bought what supplies were stolen. It wasn’t a big deal but we were thinking it might be the two guys we had run into earlier. Tomorrow we will see if we got any gold from the samples.  

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

[GhostMiner]

   October 7   2012

 

   At breakfast I heard some equipment running down at the bottom of the mountain and I saw someone loading the excavator on a flatbed. I hiked down there and saw it was one of Gary's crew. I said hello and we chewed the fat for a few minutes. He said they were heading to  Arizona for the Winter and doing some mining work for a claim owner out there. I told him about what had happened at our camp and we thought it might be the two guys with metal detectors we’d had words with. He said they’d had problems with more than a few prospectors and metal detecting people. He said they’d run all over some of the claims including the one they were hired to work on out here. He said they’d gotten into it with a few of them and they slapped one of them around some. He told us to be careful. I wished him good luck and told him to say hello to Gary for me and then I headed back up the mountain.

   I told Dustin what I had been told and we set about highbanking and panning the samples. There were a couple pickers and lots of really fine gold in them. We both looked at each other and I said it looked pretty good. Dustin agreed. We decided to hike back out there and take more samples from the pit so we worked an area closer to the south wall and got some good gravels. We hiked back to camp and had supper. We’ll see what they show tomorrow.

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

[GhostMiner]

   October 8   2012

 

   This morning we processed the samples and there were no pickers but there was a lot of fine gold. Enough to keep me interested. We decided to head back out again and test the area near the west wall. It was a cold day and it looked like rain was coming. I was thinking we might not have a whole bunch of time left to sample but I wanted to keep going as well as do some more posting before we called it for the year. When we got to the pit and looked down I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the two metal detector guys working and digging holes. Now I was pissed and so was Dustin. I yelled out “Hey” as loud and gruff as I could. I asked them what they thought they were doing. I got the same result as before -  F You. We headed down into the pit and I told the big mouth he should learn some respect. He told me to get out of his face or he'd drop me. I told him to go ahead on and take his best shot. Now I’m not a real young guy anymore but I stay in shape and I’ve had lots of gym fights as I’d boxed for years. I used to spar with professionals regularly. So I was more than ready for this clown.

   He got up in my face but his buddy was staying out of it. I told Dustin to watch him. I dropped my shovel and said “let’s go”. He just stood there staring at me. I gave him a little push and asked him what was the matter? He took a wild swing that I saw coming. When he threw the punch he pulled his arm way back first and then unloaded it. In boxing one of the first things you learn is not to do that. You throw from your shoulder and turn your hip with it. The punch gets there twice as fast and with twice the power. So his big western style telegraphed punch was slow and I slipped  it and brought a left cross and straight right that connected and he never saw them coming. He was down and not getting up without help. So his buddy helped him out of the pit and we followed them until they were out of our area and nowhere near camp. They never said a word the whole way out.

   Then we hiked back and did our work at the bottom of the west wall. We still weren’t finding bedrock. We got our samples from a good four foot deep hole and got back to camp and called it a day. We had supper and a few beers and I think the temperature dipped under 30 degrees. I was glad for the tent heater.

   TO BE CONTINUED ..............

[GhostMiner]

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