Akau

Steve, I would like to thank you first of all for mentioning us on your forum. We had a very good year in 2013. This was our 2nd. year in operation as a pay to mine operation. We mined for many years as a family operation & decided to turn our claims into a pay to mine, giving those that love the outdoors & the thrill of finding gold the opportunity to enjoy the things we have been doing for years. We are still expanding to accommodate more guests as we find there are many that enjoy this kind of vacation. Those that make a business out of getting as much gold as they can possibly get & sell it probably aren't a good fit for us. We want our guests to enjoy the many things that are available in Alaska that are not available else where. This is a place one can relax, be waited on in a rustic setting & make new friends that are of like mind. 2013 was a year of excitement as many of our guests found 2.1 oz nuggets as well as many 1 oz. nuggets. We also have high banking which many guests preferred over metal detecting. Most of the high bankers took home at least 1/2 to 2 oz. of gold. My son & I will never go back to mining as was suggested in your forum. We have had the break down of equipment throughout our years of mining & neither one of us is a mechanic & trying to find one is like trying to find needles in a haystack. We had one good mechanic Steve Pomrenke & he had the urge to mine too so that put us back to repairing our own equipment. This coming season we are leasing two different claims from long time friends of ours. We plan to add dredging to our packages this coming season. We are letting several return guests give it a try & will decide whether to add it later in the season or next year. There will be a 10-15% royalty on the claims that we lease this year. There is no royalty on the claims my son & I own. Our atv rentals come with gas or you may opt to have us take you to the site so as to metal detect. It is not a must unless you wish to come & go as you please. Many want the atv's so they can go on side trips to see the country side. Speaking of country side, we had some excitement last summer as we were witnessing a herd of muskoxen being chased by a mother bear & her two cubs on the ridge just beyond our camp. Our guests were able to watch this play out over a period of several hours. The bears did not win the chase. Four male muskoxen turned on the bears to protect the herd. Where can one see that kind of wildlife from a safety point? We also had a tv production company that wanted to do a reality show on us which we decided was not a good fit for our company in spite of the terrific publicity it would have given us. We did wish that they could have been there during the time the bears were chasing the muskoxen. We are still building for more guests for the future, however we don't want to get so large that we can't give each of our guests individual attention. You can visit our facebook account to see the quantity of gold that was found at our site in 2013. Hope to see some of you there next season. Betty & Augie