Bear

Doug, I hope you had a great, productive summer. The weather was good most of the season. I have a question. What do you use to drive the trommel? I see a gas motor in the pictures, what I am wondering what is the gear on the barrel and what sort of take off or engagement system do you use?

Call it a Granitoid unless you know 100% where it falls on the QAP diagram

My moms uncles flag and awards. KIA Vietnam, 1969.

Circa October 2005, Mosul Iraq. The man on the far right died over there after I was MEDEVACed. I got him into prospecting in AK.

After digging more trash for a skunk day.

Wow, congrats to your customer. Back in the 90s and early 2000 I saw many nuggets from WY found with SDs and GP Extremes. For the most part it was a small group of guys I knew who found all of the gold. I found these two few years ago in WY with an SDC. Pretty rough with bits of quartz attached.

Great post. The large square nail is pretty cool. I have a few good ones that I found mostly in WY. In AK I find a lot of small tacks.

So cool!!

Thank you for the info. Where I dredge there are not to many boulders either They are mostly quartz slicks or quartzite. The bedrock is a quartz schist so it doesn’t break off into anything to big. All the frost shattering leave a layer of clay with broke pieces of the bedrock. Almost all of the gold is in the clay.

Mineit, This is a great post. I have been meaning to comment and ask a couple of questions if you don’t mind because I also have a claim up the Steese. Your operation looks awesome and a lot of fun. We are looking to do some light exploration this summer. I think my claim is closer to Fairbanks but the geology is similar. How much muck is on top of gravels? How deep is the pay/ bedrock? Historic info says the main valley below my claim the bedrock was 10-12 feet. Looking around mine I think it is shallower because it is in a side valley. I dredge up in that same area but don’t run into frozen ground. I am pretty sure on my claim the ground is frozen based on the vegetation. Any info would be appreciated.

It looks like it would work good when screened. Light and portable. I like plastic sluices from Europe. I learned about these molded blue sluices from Sweden when I was a kid. I know they haven’t been made for a while but they work great for fine gold.

Not to compact but the best fire pits. It is two washing machine drums with legs that screw on welded to the bottom.

7 total, still own 4. GP Extreme EQ 800 SDC Falcon It’s been a while but I would like to find a nugget with the GP. I found some back in the day with it including some moderately small pieces but nothing like the SDC. I still use the Falcon still for pieces of quartz. Right now I am really more of a dredger than anything else.

I always have the freeze dried food on hand and eat a lot in Alaska. They are light, don’t necessarily don’t have to be heated ( little crunchy), or don’t use a whole lot of water. I mostly eat mountain house but there are other brands. I use jet boil to heat the water. I always keep a water purifier in my side by side, there is always water around in AK.

Detected nuggets in Alaska, Wyoming and New Mexico. Dredged, sluiced or panned flake or fine gold in Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and found nuggets in Georgia and Montana.